Hey Arnold! The Hangover
by Linken88
Summary: Our favorite PS 118 students are all grownup and fresh out of collage and deiced to take a trip to Vegas before they go off into the world. But after one little mistake they wake up in a room that is not their own and one of their friends is missing. Worst of all they cant remember anything from the night before. Will they find their missing friend and figure out what happened?
1. Chapter 1

The dust starts settling as I get up off the ground watching the car driving off into the desert and dust myself off. I look back at our car, everyone is still hiding behind it sept for Helga.

With a deep sigh I look to her and say; "Make the call."

She takes out her phone and taps the screen a few times. "Phoebe its Helga, we didn't get him."

A week earlier

"It sure is great to finally be back in Hillwood." I say driving down the road and looking around at the shops as I pass them by. "The city hasn't changed much." It's only been a few days since we got back into town from collage. It was a rough four years but luckily for me I had Gerald as my roommate so I always had my best friend with me and didn't have to worry about a new roommate every year.

Just then my phone rings. "Hello." I say as I answer it.

"Hey Arnold it's Gerald."

"Hey what's up?"

"Just want to make sure you guys are on your way."

"I am, had to drop her off at her parents; her sister came into town for a surprise visit. So she said she come by after a quick visit with her, I should be at Slausen's in a few minutes."

"Alright, see you in a bit then."

"Later." I hang up the phone.

I get to Slausen's and park around the corner. Inside the shop I see some old failure faces.

"Hey guys." The gang had thinned out some over the years but most of the old PS 118 guys were here. Harold had gone out of state to get a double major in business and culinary, but had to come back to Hillwood after his dad got sick. He's better now and Harold is Mr. Greens apprentice and hire to the butchers shop when he finally retires. Phoebe's been working to become a doctor and will be heading out to California to start medical school in the fall. Gerald and her have been dating since we were in the seventh grade and are still going strong. Gerald himself got a business degree, but he never seemed to be into it. I guess he just didn't want to disappoint his dad. Both Eugene and Sheena skipped going to a traditional collage and went to an arts school and now are acting in some big plays. Nadine and Rhonda are still the best of friends (Like me and Gerald). Even with Nadine studying Entomology and Rhonda majoring in Fashion. Sid and Stinky never even applied for any schools, they work for the same construction company Ernie works for. Helga (who wasn't here yet) had gotten a full ride to collage and has a degree in English with a focus on creative writing. She's even gotten a book of poetry being published and it is coming out some time later in the year. Thaddeus (though we still call him Curly) surprised all of us with starting down the road to become a lawyer. I myself just went for cinematography; I've always had an interest in film and had a lot of fun learning how to make them. Grandma and Grandpa are very proud of me happy even though none of my movie ideas were ever made by the class.

"Hey Arnold!" they all say as I shake a hands and even get a few hugs from friends I hadn't seen in a while.

"It's good to see you all." I sit down at one of the tables the group had taken.

"Yeah it has been far too since we all have been together." Rhonda says.

"And in a couple months some of us will be leaving to other parts of the country to continue school." Curly says.

"We need to do something big, one last hurrah as a group before we have to go our separate ways." Sid says

"I know what we should do." Curly says.

"What's that?" Harold asks.

"Vegas." Curly says in response to Harold's question.

"What?" Gerald asks.

"Vegas. We all go to Vegas for a few days and have a grand old time."

"That, actually sounds like a good idea. I've always wanted to go to Vegas." Gerald says.

"Me too." Rhonda Says.

"Vegas sounds like it would be a lot of fun, but when could we all go?" I ask.

"What about next Friday? We call can fly out and have a whole weekend there and fly back Sunday night. And don't worry Daddy travels down there often so I'm sure we can barrow his private plane.

"Rhonda, is there anything your dad doesn't have a private one of?" Gerald asks.

"He probably doesn't have a space station." We all turn around to see who said that. It was Helga that spoke as she walked in to the shop.

I get up "Hey Helga how's your sister?"

"She's good, proud and happy for me but made me promise to give her an autographed copy of my book when it comes out" she says as she walked up to the group.

"Do I get one too?" I ask giving her a hug.

"Of Corse you do football head." She replies back then kisses me.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Me Helga have been dating since the eighth grade. She got put on the spot during a game of truth and dare, and after a little coaxing I got her to confess her feelings for me and we've been happily dating ever since. Phoebe and Her were also roommates at the same collage that Gerald and I went to, so we saw each other all the time. We all agree to the Vegas trip and plan to be at Rhonda's bright and early next Friday.

Helga and I are riding with Phoebe and Gerald in Gerald's car to Rhonda's. And when we arrive we're told by one of her house hands that we are supposed to meet her and the others at the Hillwood airport.

"Criminy why didn't she tell us to go there in the first place." Helga says next to me in the back seat.

"It's to be expected from our favorite fashion queen." Gerald says putting the car into gear and talking off down the street.

Phoebe turns around in her seat and asks; "So Arnold, did you bring your video camera with you?"

"Na, I didn't want to worry about losing it so I left it at home, I think Helga brought a digital camera though."

"Yep, graduation gift from the parents, I plan on taking all kinds of pictures on this trip" Helga pulls out her new camera from her bag.

"Ooo, it looks very fancy." Phoebe says admiring Helga's new camera.

"It is, I'm still figuring out all the little things it can do." She puts it back in her bag.

After find Rhonda and the others at the airport we get through security (and stop Helga from punching a TSA agent who "got too frisky with her") we boarded her father's plane, which was big enough to seat around twenty people. The plane is just as fancy as everything else Rhonda's family owns. It was carpeted from wall to wall in a lush red carpet and has couches instead of normal plane seats. There is even a mine bar at the back of the plane.

"Jesus Rhonda, what does your dad do for a living?" Helga asks as we walk into the plane.

"Ha ha ha please." She says sitting down and talking a drink the bartender brought her. "Thank you Linus." She says to him.

Helga and I look at each other then back to Rhonda. "Okay…" I say as we take one of the couches accost from Gerald and Phoebe. "Dare I ask?" I say to Helga.

"I wouldn't." She says.

The plane ride was enjoyable, we laughed at jokes and Harold was in a constant state of psyching us up the whole flight. "This is going to be awesome guys!" He says for maybe the hundredths time.

"We know Harold, you've been saying that the whole flight and it's starting to get old." Sid says turning from looking out the window.

"Sorry, this is just the first time I've ever been any ware outside of Hillwood." He says as he bounces up and down in his seat like a little kid. A few of us laughed at Harold and his child like joy.

"This is your Captain speaking, Mrs. Lloyd we will be arriving in Las Vegas in ten minutes, please have everyone seated and buckled in." We hear the captain over the intercom system.

"Ok people, you heard the man, sit down and strap in." Rhonda says as she buckles herself in with her seat belt and we all buckle in as well to prepare for our decent into Las Vegas. The plane lands and docks at the terminal Harold is the first one off the plane running like a little kid. As I get up from my seat to join the queue to get off the plane Gerald grabs my arm and says;

"Hey Arnold, hold back for a second. Don't worry girls, it's just guy talk." He says when Phoebe and Helga look at us with a confused look on their faces.

"Ok, well see you guys in the terminal." Phoebe says as Helga and her leave the plane.

I turn to face Gerald and ask; "What's up?"

"This." He says talking a little box out of his jacket pocket and hands it to me.

Unsure of what it is I open it. "Is this what I think it is? Are you going to do what I think you're going to do?" I ask looking at what's in the little box then to him?

"Arnold." He says talking the box back from me. "There are a few things I am suntan of in life. One of them is that we will always be best friends, and the other is that I love Phoebe more than anything and I want to be with her for the rest of my life." He puts the box back into his pocket.

"I'm happy for you, for both of you. No one deserves this more than you two."

"What about you and Helga?" he asks as we start walking to the door of the plane.

"I love Helga and we are very happy together but I don't think were ready to take that leap. Yet."

"Ha ha, well just don't go stealing my thunder this weekend."

"I promise I won't, it'll be your weekend." I say as we exit the tunnel from the plane and join the rest.

We arrived at one of the hotels again thanks to Rhonda's planning we arrived in style in a limo; she even had rooms pre booked for us. Rhonda had put me, Helga, Phoebe and Gerald in a room together that had two bedrooms, Her Nadine and Sheena are sharing a room and the five guys (Eugene, Curly, Sid, stinky and Harold) have to share a two bedroom.

As she was handing out room keys Stinky says; "You know Rhonda for this being Curly's original idea you sure have planned almost everything, like you were in on the idea from the beginning."

"Don't be silly, it was a good idea and I just made it work. But if you don't like the kindness given to you by a friend, you can always take a bus back to Hillwood." She says holding back his key.

"I didn't mean no disrespect Rhonda. Thank you very much for the trip."

"Good. Now let's head up to our room and settle in and meet back down here in an hour and well hit the town."

We all agree and ride up the elevator and head to our rooms. Inside our room the bedroom doors were on opposite sides of the sitting/dining room and each room had its own bathroom.

"Wow, this place is really fancy." Phoebe says as we look around the room.

As she opens the door to our room Helga says "Yeah, this is pretty swanky. Oh look fancy bottled water." She walks into our room and picks up a bottle of water from the table in our room. I walk into the room, drop my bag on the ground next to the bed and fall backwards onto the bed.

"Ugh, flying can really drain the energy out of you."

"You're not getting tired on me are you?" Helga asks sitting down on the bed next to me taking a drink from the bottle.

"Not tired, I just feel drained." I say putting my arm over my eyes.

"I know a way to recharge you." She says leaning down to me.

"Oh yeah?" I say taking my hand off of my head.

"Yeah." She leans down like she's going to kiss me and I lean up to kiss he back closing my eyes. That was my first mistake. I feel our lips barely touch then she quickly draws back and splashes me with some water. "Take a shower that will refresh you."

"Ack!" I quickly sit up whipping away the water.

"But you'll have to wait till I'm done." She says walking over to her bag.

"Helga!" I say getting up. She giggles at me as she picks up her bag and walks towards the bathroom

"Oh no you don't" I say walking after her. She picked up her paste and was into the bathroom before I could get her. I try and open the door but she had locked it and I can still hear her laughing through the door.

I walk back into the sitting room and find the ice bucket and knock on Gerald and Phoebe's door.

Gerald answers the door saying; "What's up man? Why are you wet?"

"Long story, could I use your rest room? Helga is taking a shower and has locked the door."

He steps aside to let me in saying; "Sure thing man." I walk into their bathroom and fill the bucket half way with water.

"What are you doing Arnold?" Phoebe asks.

"Escalating." Is all I say as I walk out of there room. "Don't worry it's all in good fun. But if she kills me, tell Abner that I love him and that I regretted nothing."

"Okay…" is all she says.

Back in our room I shut the door and move a chair from the table to next to the bathroom door. I climb up on it and wait. While I wait I lean up against the wall, she didn't take too long in the shower and soon I hear the shower turn off. I stand up straight and hold the bucket in both hands in front of me. A few minutes later I hear the door unlock and prepare to strike. She opens the door steps out fully dressed in new cloths and I say; "Hey Helga."

She looks up at me just as I dump the water on top of her head. She screams as the water falls on her and I quickly jump off of the chair.

I couldn't help but laugh as she slowly turned and looked at me, she had a look of anger on her face. "What the HELL Arnold?"

Still laughing I say "Escalated vengeance, you taught me that." She doesn't say anything back she just jumps at me. "Eep." Is all I say as I drop the bucket and she pushes me onto the bed. She gets on top of me pining me down and holding my arms down away from my body. She still has the look of anger on her face as she holds me down onto the bed.

"That was a very mean thing you did." Her expression relaxes into a small smile "I guess I've taught you too well."

"You will always be the master of pranks Helga." I say smiling at her.

"You're damn right Football Head." She gives me a quick kiss and gets off me.

"I'm going to end up paying for this later aren't I?" I ask sitting up on the bed

"Yes you are, and here's the first part." She pulls her wet shirt over her head and throws it at me. It hits me in the face and I pull it away just in time to see her shirtless walking into the bathroom. "Ok, that was mean."

"The worst is yet to come." She yells from the bathroom closing the door.

"Oh boy."

"But would you love me if I was any different?" She asks stepping out of the bathroom with a dry shirt on.

"Nope, I wouldn't want you to be any different." I say as I pick up my bag to take a shower myself.

"Good, cause nothing's going to change this girl."

"You're adorable Helga." I say entering the bathroom.

"You bet I am." She says as I close the door.

After I take my shower the four of us head back down to the lobby to join the rest of the gang. Harold is still far too excited about being Vegas.

"Come on you guys! Let's hit the hotel bar before we go out on the town."

"Calm down Harold, your acting like were ten again and are on our way to the chocolate factory on a field trip." Sid says trying to calm his friend.

"A quick drink dose sound good though." Helga says.

"I could go for one too." Rhonda adds.

We head over to the bar of the hotel, it's a nice sized one with only a few other people in the room. There is an elderly couple in a corner and a guy at the bar itself. We take a couple of tables and a server comes and takes our drink orders. Most of us guys ordered a bottled beer except for Curly who got bourbon on the rocks. The girl's drinks were all different kinds of different ones; Helga was the only one who got a beer like us. As we enjoy our drinks we talk about what we are going to do out on the town, unfortunately we all couldn't agree on doing the same thing. Sheena and Eugene wanted to catch one of the shows and Sind and Stinky wanted to go to this Museum of strange creatures.

"I'd love to check out some of the clothing stores, I hear that the stores in Vegas have all kinds of great cloths." Rhonda says finishing her drink.

"That sounds boring, we should hit up one of the casinos. Maybe one of us will hit a jackpot." Helga says in response to Rhonda.

"We have the whole weekend, so why don't we save going to shops and other attractions till tomorrow and hit a casino and the maybe one of the shows?" I say trying to get everyone to agree to something. It took a little more work to persuade everyone to agree to my idea, but in the end they did.

"Alright. The night is young and so are we, let's get this party train going!" Sid says as we get up from the tables. As we walk towards the door of the bar (after paying for our dinks of course) Gerald stops and says; "Hold up guys."

"What's up Gerald?" I ask knowing what he's probably going to do.

"Phoebe." He says grabbing her hand.

"Yes?"

"Baby, there are a few things I am suntan of in life, and the most important one is that I love you Phoebe Heyerdahl more than anything." I couldn't help but crack a smile as I watch my best friend.

"And I love you too Gerald."

"And I feel like I need to do this before the night gets too crazy."

"What are you talking-" She stops talking as Gerald takes the little box out of his pocket and gets down on one knee and asks.

"Phoebe Heyerdahl will you marry me?" He opens the box revealing the engagement ring inside it.

"Oh my god, YES a thousand times yes!" She says taking the ring out of the box and putting it on her finger. She pulls him up and hugs and kisses him.

"But what about school? I'm moving out to California this fall?" she asks breaking the kiss.

"You think I wasn't going to go with you?"

"But what about your parents? Where will you live and." He places a finger over her mouth to stop her.

"Baby, you're killing the moment. Well worry about all that later."

"Right, later." She then turns to the rest of us that were either quiet to not interrupt them or out of shock. "I'm getting married!" She says her voice going very high pitched.

Helga is the first to get to her best friend and gives her a hug. "I call dibs on being your maid of honor."

"And you have to let me design your dress!" Rhonda says giving her a hug followed by Sheena and Nadine both giving there congratulations.

The guys and I were around Gerald shaking his hand and patting him on the back congratulating him. We were too preoccupied congratulating them to have noticed that Harold had disappeared.

"Hey guys, I got us something." I turned to see Harold carrying a tray of glasses over to us.

"What you got there?" Nadine asks.

"Champagne to toast the engagement." He says holding out the tray for everyone to take a glass. We each take a glass and hold them up as Harold says; "To Gerald and Phoebe, coagulation's and we all wish you the best of luck on your life together."

"Here here." We all say approving of his toast and down our glasses.

"This champagne tasted kind of funny." Rhonda says as she looked into her emptied glass.

"Maybe it's just a cheap brand." Phoebe says setting her glass back on Harold's tray.

Still looking at her glass Rhonda says "Hum, maybe." She gives the glass a quick sniff then shrugs and sets it on the tray.

"Alright, enough standing around, lets hit the town." Helga says sounding like she's getting impatient.

"Yeah let's get this night going!" Sid says. We head out of the hotel and head down the street to the Vegas Strip.

**AN: **The first chapter of my Hey Arnold Hangover spoof, I've been working on this for a while and have been posting it on DeviantART but was told that I might get more reads here on . I will upload all the other chapters I have written when I figure out how to. (First time post is always the hardest ot figure out .)


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh god what is that light? Oh hell my head hurts." I say rolling over to try and hide from the mysterious light. I roll over into someone; I open my eyes and see a blond haired head sticking out of the blankets. I think its Helga but I'm unsure and decide to risk more head pain to find out.

"Helga?" 'Ow' I think to myself, even talking hurts me. I give them a genital shake.

"Hum what? Oh fuck my head!" It is Helga, and she sounds like her head is in the same level of pain as me. She pulls her head under the covers to hide her herself.

'We must have drunk far too much last night. Wait, how much DID we drink? I can't remember anything from last night.' I think as I lay back down and close my eyes. 'Did we get blackout drunk? Jesus I've never gone that far before and I hope I never do again.'

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" A scream comes from outside the room and forgetting that there is a blinding light I snap up into a sitting position and am hit by the light.

"Ah shit." I say when the light hits me. I cover my eyes with my hand and stumble out of bed and over to the door. I try pulling it open but it doesn't budge, so I try pushing it instead and it opens 'strange, I thought our room door opened in.'

"Gerald Phoebe? Are you guys ok?" I ask still keeping my eyes covered.

"Arnold? Is that you?"

"Nadine? What are you doing in our room?"

"I think you should open your eyes, also may be put on some pants."

"What?" I say taking my hand off my eyes and slowly open them. The room is a lot darker than the bedroom and my eyes slowly adjust to the light as I look down at myself, I just have my boxers on.

"What the hell…" I say looking up and survey the room. It's not the room we checked into, this one is at least three times as big. Sid and Stinky are sleeping in what I assume is an emptied indoor mini hot tub and Harold is on top of the island counter in the mini kitchen. I see Gerald and Phoebe on the couch and Sheena, Eugene, Rhonda and Curly are nowhere to be seen.

"Nadine, was that you that screamed?" I asked.

"No… it was me." I hear Sheena say. We look around for her and find her on the floor of the kitchen.

"What's wrong? Did something happen?" I ask kneeling down next to her.

"Look!" She holds up a hand full of yellow wrappers that look like they are from a fast food burger joint.

"Are those?" Nadine says her eyes going wide.

"Yes, there hamburger wrappers. I... I ate meat!"

"Oh no!" Sheena has been a vegetarian since we were in the sixth grade. "Keep calm Sheena, It will be ok." I say trying to calm her down.

"No it won't, I ate a cow! I ate several! Oh god, I'm going to be sick." She pushes us a side and gets up, looks around and heads for what I assume is the bathroom. She rips open the door and rushes in and I hear her being "sick" then flushing the toilet.

"Eeep!" Sheena screams.

"Ahhh!" A woman's voice screams.

"Ahhh!" A man's voice screams after the woman's and I rush into the bathroom.

"Is everything ok- what the!?" I say when I get in and see Rhonda and Curly in the bath tub. Rhonda's hair is dyed pink and Curly has shaved his completely off.

"Rhonda? Curly? What are you doing in here?" I ask them

"I can explain!" Rhonda.

"Criminy what is with all the screaming? Holy hell! Where the hell are we?" I hear Helga say from the main room.

"Jesus Helga, could you be any loader? What the? Ok I'm with you. Where the hell are we?" I hear Gerald say as I come back into the main room. Helga is wearing my long button up shirt.

"Guys? Ack!" Sid says waking up and jumping out of the hot tub. "Stinky wake up!"

Stinky opens his eyes sits up and looks around. "Wilikers, what the hell happened last night?"

"I have no idea, anyone remember anything?" I ask.

"All I can remember is Gerald proposing, us drinking the champagne and leaving the hotel." Rhonda says helping Sheena out of the bathroom who has gone pale.

"Yeah, that all I can remember too." Phoebe says popping her head up over the couch.

"Me too." Sid says helping Stinky out of the hot tub.

"Harold!" Rhonda yells handing Sheena over to me. "Wake your fat ass up." She pushes him off the counter.

"Ow, what the heck? Rhonda that hurt."

"What the hell did you do?"

"What are you talking about? Hey, where are we?"

"The champagne, what the hell did you do to it? Cause none of us can remember anything after drinking it." She picks him up off the floor and holds him up by his shoulders.

"Ow, hey that hurts."

'Tell me or you will be in a world of pain!" She starts shaking him. I set Sheena down on the couch and Gerald helps me pull Rhonda off of him and I tell her; "Calm down Rhonda. Harold, did you do anything to the champagne?" I ask him as he drops back to the ground rubbing his right shoulder.

"I… I…" he says sounding very unsure. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean for anything bad to happen!" he puts his head in his hands and starts crying.

"Harold, what did you do?" I let go of Rhonda who's fighting against Gerald and kneel down by Harold.

His sobbing lessees. "When I went and bought the champagne the guy at the bar asked if we wanted to have an even greater time in town. I told him that we did and he then sold me what he claimed were some pills called E. He said to put them in the champagne and we'd have the night of our lives. I'm sorry!" He went back to crying after finishing his story.

"You put drugs in our drinks!? Tall Hair Boy, release the Kraken." Helga says to Gerald wanting him to let Rhonda go so she could attack Harold again.

"But if it was call "E" it might have Ecstasy and if my memory serves me right it doesn't cause memory loss." Phoebe says.

"Ok, so we all got drugged and can't remember what we did last night. Everyone is here though right?" I ask.

"Hey Arnold, what's that?" Harold says looking up from his hands and pointing at my left hand.

"What?"

"That on your finger, is that a ring?"

"A ring, I don't wear a-"I stop talking when I see that in fact I do have a gold ring on my left ring finger. My eyes go wide and I look over to Helga.

"Helga, we didn't? Did we?"

"I can't remember, but look." She holds up her left hand showing us that she has a gold ring on her left hand too.

I get up and walk over to her and look at the ring on her hand, it's a simple gold ring just like mine. "Helga, I think we got married last night."

"Wait, where is Eugene?" Sheena asks looking around.

"He's not here? Everyone look around for him and Rhonda, don't kill Harold." I say pointing at Rhonda who Gerald finally let go of to go look for Eugene.

Helga and I go back into the bedroom to look and get dressed. I close the curtains of the window which was the sores of that blinding light. That seemed like it was hours ago but it had only been maybe thirty minutes since I woke up. I find my pants on the floor and pull them on and turn to Helga and ask; "Um, could I have my shirt back?"

"Oh, I forgot I was wearing it. Yeah sure." She starts to unbutton it but stops when she gets the first few buttons undone. She quickly re buttons it back down as her face turns a little red.

"Hold on a second." She walks over and closes the door. "You mind turning around?"

"Why?"

"I'm um, not wearing anything under your shirt." Her face getting redder.

"Oh, OH! Yeah sure." I turn around and sit down on the bed facing the wall. While sitting on the bed I find the shirt I was wearing over my buttoned one and pull it on. I give Helga her privacy as she finds her clothes and dresses.

She throws my shirt at me and says; "Ok, you can look now." I pull my arms through the shirt and turn around on the bed.

"So, do you want to talk about this?" I ask holding up my left hand.

She sits down on the bed next to me "I know we need to, this is big and a big deal if we did. But contrary to popular belief I do not think of myself as the center of the universe and I know that there are bigger things to deal with. We need to find Eugene and figure out what happened last night before we talk about getting hitched while we were drunk."

"Yeah but are you Ok? You're not hurt or anything?" I say agreeing with her, bigger things are a foot.

"A little embarrassed that I was standing out there in just a shirt and my head feels like a gnome is jack hammering inside my skull, but other than that yeah I'm ok."

"As long as you not hurt, now let's see if the other have found him."

We head back out into the main room Sheena is sobbing on the couch and Harold is sitting in a corner facing the wall.

'I guess no sign of him.' I think to myself. "Find anything?" I ask.

Sheena stops crying long enough to say; "No, my Eugene isn't here. I don't know where he is, he could be hurt or in trouble. My pore Eugene." She covers her face in her hands and starts crying again.

Nadine sat down next to her and pulled her over so Sheena's head was on her shoulder. "She's been like this ever since we couldn't find him."

"I didn't know you two were a thing." Helga says.

"Were not, but if when I find him I'm never going to let him go." Sheena says still crying on Nadine's shoulder. Just then there was a knock on the room door. "Eugene? Maybe that's him!" Sheena jumps off the couch and opens the door.

"Hello Room service." A little Hispanic woman walks into the room with a cart with a large covered platter. "We have your request Mr. and Mrs. Shortman of pancakes and fruit. And we from the hotel staff would like to congratulate you on your marriage."

"Um, we didn't order any room service." I say to the maid.

"You put in the order when you checked into the honeymoon sweet last night."

"Oh, shit guys, how are we going to pay for all this?" I realized that we couldn't put the cost of whatever we did last night on Rhonda.

"Your receipt shows that your bill is to be taken out of your winnings from last night." She says looking at a slip of paper.

"Oh well, thank you then."

"You're welcome dear; I just need you to sing for it here." She holds out the slip of paper and a pen. I take it and sing my name and hand it back to her.

"Thank you. You kids enjoy your meal and once again congratulations." She says as she leaves the room. Sheena leans against the door after it closes and slides down onto the floor. We hear her say "Eugene, where are you?"

"Ok guys check your pockets, maybe we have something that can clue us in on what we did." Gerald says.

I pull the cart over to the table by the kitchen and empty my pockets like everyone else.

"Ok, we have some receipts, a key, a cell phone that isn't any of ours, the rest of the pills Harold bought and this." Gerald says as he unfolds a piece of paper. He looks at it then hands it to me. "You might want to see this."

I look at the paper then look over to Helga; "Well this confirms it."

"What is it?" She asks.

"Our marriage certificate. We got married at the For Ever Love Chapel and Salon."

"Doesn't sound like a high class joint." She says taking the certificate from me.

"Can you make anything of the receipts?" Harold asks.

"You! Back into your corner." Rhonda orders pointing at the corner he was sitting in.

"Can't I have something to eat?" He asks.

"No, you can sit there and suffer."

"Come on Rhonda, the man needs to eat just like the rest of us." Sid says defending Harold.

"Fine, but I still plan on beating him to a pulp for this. I mean look at my hair!" She pulls at her hair and then collapses onto the couch "This is all wrong! It wasn't supposed to be like this." She dropped her head into her hands

"What do you mean?" Phoebe asks her.

"This, all of this. This is not how I planned for the weekend to go." She says keeping her head in her hands.

"You couldn't have seen the weekend going like this." I tell her trying to sound comforting.

"But we planned everything; I thought it would be just a simple fun weekend before we leave." My efforts didn't seem to work as she started to cry.

"Leave? You're leaving? And with whom?" Sid asks.

"Me." Curly says sitting down next to her. "I got accepted into NYU and she got an internship at this fashion place." He put his arm around her and pulls her into a hug. "Rhonda didn't want to leave everyone without a proper send off. So I suggested that we plan a trip to Vegas, something that we'd all remember."

"But we have months before you'd have to leave for school in the fall. And why are you two moving together? Unless, Oh… How long have you two been dating?" Gerald asks busting them.

"We got together during the last summer break. I didn't want to tell anyone." Rhonda stops crying.

"Why didn't you want to tell us, where your friends after all." Helga asks her.

"Because my parents don't like Curly, they think he's not good enough for me. And I didn't want to risk any chance of them finding out."

"Rhonda you know we would never tell your parents anything that would get you into trouble." Nadine says sitting down next to her best friend. I don't know about everyone else, but me and Helga had guessed that the two of them would someday get together someday. They use to butt heads like we did before we started dating. And judging by the lack of shock from everyone else, they also saw this coming.

"But why so soon after we got back? We could have had weeks of fun together."

"I don't start school till the fall, but Rhonda's Internship starts in a week and a half. We're driving out to New York to move into the Apartment her parent's got her on Tuesday." Curley says.

"But if your parents don't like him, why would they let him live with you?" Harold asked as he eyed the cart.

"I wasn't going to tell them you idiot." She snaps at Harold.

"Oh, that makes sense."

"And now because of you and your lack of thinking is going to get me disowned by my parents." With her anger back she jumps up and tries to land a punch in his face but missed and hits his right shoulder.

"Ow that really hurt!" He says dropping onto the floor.

"Good." She says sitting back down.

"Come on Harold, it couldn't have hurt that hard." Stinky says going over to him.

"It did, and it still does."

Phoebe kneels down next to him. "Let me see, maybe you hurt yourself last night."

She rolls up his sleeve. "Well I know why your arm is hurting."

"What is it? Did I break my arm?"

"No, you um… got a tattoo."

"What?" He tries to look at his shoulder but his big body size is too big for him to see. "What is it?"

"It just says "PATTY". Harold, you got a tattoo of your girlfriend's name."

"You got Patty's name tattooed on your arm? I have to get a picture of this." Helga rushes off into the bedroom to no doubt find her camera.

"Aww man! Can we at least eat now, I'm sure Patty and my parents are going to be mad as hell at me."

"I'm with Harold, I am starving." Sid says clearly eyeing the cart of food.

"Ok, well eat and figure out a game plan." I say getting up and walk over to the cart. I take the cover off to reveal a pile of pancakes and all kinds of fruit. We all gather around the cart and start serving our selves food.

"Come on Sheena, you need to be strong for Eugene if we are going to find him." Nadine says as she helps her off the floor by the door and walks her over to the table. "Hear, try and eat." She sets a plate of just fruit in front of her. Sheena slowly picks at the fruit.

"Is there any coffee? I could really use some." Rhonda asks looking over the cart.

"Sorry, doesn't look like they brought us some." I say.

"Maybe there is some in the kitchen." Nadine adds.

"Maybe…" Rhonda starts looking through the cabinets.

"My camera isn't in my purse." Helga comes back into the main room. "Now I'm pissed."

I hand her a plate of food. "I'm sure we'll find it Helga."

"I hope so, I haven't had it for even a month, and I'm sure Big Bob won't be happy I've lost it." She takes the plate and sits down on the floor with the rest of us.

"A ha! Look Q-Cups! Now where the machine?" Rhonda says holding up a small box.

"What's a Q-Cup?" Stinky asks.

"It's this amazing machine that makes single cups of coffee." She pulls out a bulky machine from the cabinet and sets it on the counter and plugs it in.

"Now to find cups." She digs around in the top cabinets and found a shelf full of mugs.

"Anyone else want coffee?" She asks. Everyone but Sheena and Stinky get a cup of coffee and we drink it as we eat. The coffee helped kill the hangover I was fighting back the pain of.

"Thank the gods of designer fabrics for this place having coffee." Rhonda says after taking a big drink from her mug.

"Gods of designer fabrics? You really are the Queen of Fashion Rhonda." Helga says between mouthfuls of food.

"You think I'm bad, you should have seen some of the girls I was in school with. They were crazy obsessed with fashion."

"And the difference is?" Helga asked her.

"I want to make fashionable clothing and leave a mark on the industry, they had no interest in challenging the statuesque, hell there was this one girl that changed five times one day just to "be in the now of fashion"." She added air quotes to the last part.

"Wow, I guess there are crazies no matter where you go." Helga says.

"To be fair, I think we have a habit of attracting them sometimes." I add to the conversation. Everyone looks at me then we all start laughing, even in the face of all this uncertainty we still can laugh together. I guess that's proof of how good of friends we are.

"Ok, now let's get back to those receipts." Gerald lays them out in front of him on the floor and starts picking them up one at a time. "Let's see, we have one for a burger joint, sorry Sheena. One for chips at a casino, our tickets to a musical show, one for entry into The Museum of Strange Creatures and one for Harold's tattoo and the For Ever Love Chappell and Salon."

"Oh those poor cows…" Sheena says from the table.

"How much did we get is chips?" Curly asks.

"Three hundred, damn! I hope we won a more than we lost."

"Jesus, that's a lot." Sid adds.

"What show did we see? Maybe we can check there." Nadine asked.

"Umm… Rats…"

"We saw that!? Holy hell I must have been under the influence of a lot of alcohol to have sat through that again." Helga says in shock.

"That's Eugene's favorite musical, so he had to have been with us when we saw it." Sheena adds.

"Ok, so we know he was with us up to 7pm and to how ever long the show is."

"It's roughly three hours long. I've seen it with Eugene about five times."

"Ok, so judging by the other receipts we must have been at a casino before the show then went to the tattoo place and then to the Salon, let's start by looking for this tattoo shop and see if any of us remember anything." Gerald says folding up the receipts and hands them to me and I put them in my pocket.

"It's a start, Sheena are you ok?" I ask looking up from my own plate. Her face had turned a shade of green and was resting on the table. She hadn't eaten much of the food on her plate.

"No, I don't feel good at all."

"You don't look good either; I think you must have eaten something bad." Phoebe says as she got up and looked at Sheena.

"It must have been those hamburgers." Sid says.

"She never eats meat so it is possible that your system is in chaos." Phoebe places the back of her hand on Sheena's forehead. "I think you'll be ok, but I want to take her back to our rooms so I can keep an eye on her."

"No, I have to find Eugene." Sheena says in defiance of Phoebe.

"Sheena, I will not stop till we find him for you. You have my word." I tell her.

"Not just his, but all of ours, right guys?" Curly asks.

"Right, we've been through everything together and we'll never leave a man behind." Gerald adds.

"Ok let's get going." I say getting up off the floor.

We gather up our things from all over the room and leave. As I'm closing the door I stop. "Hey Gerald, let me see that key."

"Here you go." He pulls it from his pocket and hands it to me.

I try inserting the key into the lock of the door, but it doesn't fit. "Well that rules out one lock." I put the key into my pocket.

"Meh, it was worth a try." Helga says as I pull the door shut.

"Yeah, I wonder what hotel we in anyway." We start walking down the hall. Gerald is helping Phoebe with Sheena they each had one of her arms around there necks. "I looked out the window before we left; I think it's the same."

"I hope your right Gerald, its one less trip we have to take." Stinky says.

We walk down the hall to the evader and take it down to the floor that our rooms should to be on. The floor is laid out the same so I walk over to try my room key in the lock of the room that should be ours. I turn the key and the lock clicks open and I turn the knob and the door opens.

"Well at least that's one good thing." Helga says as we enter the room. Phoebe and Gerald take Sheena into their room. "We'll stay here while you guys are looking around the city." Phoebe says as they lay her down on the bed.

"Everyone go check your rooms, see if Eugene is in one of them." I tell the others.

"Ok Arnold, handling these kinds of situations seems to be your specialty. "Stinky says as they all head off to their respective rooms.

"What did he mean by that?" I ask as Helga opens our room door.

As she looks around the room she says; "Well when things go south you tend to rise up and take charge to keep shit from falling apart. You were the one who saved the neighborhood when everyone else had given up after all."

"Yeah, but I had Gerald's and your help."

"But you were the one that inspired us to help you. Face it Football Head, you're the leader of this rag tag group of twenty something's."

"If I'm the leader what does that make you? My right hand woman?" I ask holding back a chuckle.

"Na, Gerald will always be your right hand man, I'll settle for military commander though." She closes the door.

"Ha ha, you haven't bullied or even punched anyone in years Helga."

"Just because I grew out of it doesn't mean I won't have to again someday, everything in our room is how we left it by the way." I just snicker as she closes our door. She hasn't bullied or gotten into a fight sense we were kids but I know to never push her rage button.

"I agree with Helga." Gerald says walking out of his room. "You tend to take charge when it's needed."

"Well I don't mean to do it." That was kind of a lie. I won't say I mean to take charge or that I enjoy it. I just know that I tend to be the voice of reason and the one that can remain calm when everyone is in panic. I guess over the years everyone just looks to me for leadership in a crisis.

"Were not saying it's a bad thing, it's just a part of you we can rely on."

"Well thanks I guess."

Just then Rhonda and Curly walked into the room. "Nothing in our rooms." She says.

"Nothing here either." I say to them.

"Let's head out then, no sense in hanging around here." Helga says walking out the door.

"Gerald, can you go down and see if they have any Ibuprofen? I didn't pack any, also some apple juice too." Phoebe says from the bedroom.

"Sure thing Phoebe." He says back to her.

Rhonda and Curly fallow Helga out and I grab Gerald's arm. "Wait a second Gerald."

"What's wrong?" He asks.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"This." I hold up my left hand showing him the wedding ring. "I promised I wouldn't steal your thunder of proposing to Phoebe and I went and got married. If that doesn't count as stealing your thunder I don't know what dose."

"Look man yes I'm a little irked, but would I be your best friend if I let it get to me? And I kind of had a hunch that after I proposed to Phoebe that you would follow after me. You always do when it comes to girls. Plus, we get to have a wedding in a chapel that doesn't also cut hair in Vegas."

"Ouch. So where cool?" I ask holding my hand out for our personal handshake.

"Always man." He returns the handshake. "But I'm going to stay here and help Phoebe with Sheena and maybe if Eugene shows up I can call you guys."

"Makes sense, well let's not keep everyone waiting." With a quick good bye and a prominence to be quick to Phoebe Gerald and I join the others waiting at the evader. He tells them of his plan to stay behind as we ride down to the lobby.

"It does make sense to have someone wait behind, but why couldn't it be Harold?" Rhonda asks clearly still mad at him.

"Cause his fiancée isn't staying behind to take care of a really sick friend who needs someone that she can rely on for help if needed." Gerald says as we hit the ground floor.

"Hey!" Harold says.

"Sorry man."

The door of the elevator opens and we are greeted by the blinding light of the sun and a group of people waiting to ride the elevator. The light was not as painful as it was this morning, but it still disoriented me for a few seconds.

"Ah bitch." Helga quietly says the sunlight hurting her too.

As we get out of the elevator (most of us rubbing our eyes because of the sun). "That was painful, who thought of having big windows and a reflective floor like that." Sid asks.

"A very evil architect." Curly responds to him.

"Sounds like a D grade Villain." Helga adds.

"I'm going to go get Phoebe's stuff at the hotel store, best of luck guys." Gerald says as he parts from the group.

"Alright, lets us know how Sheena dose." I say as we do our handshake.

"I will, keep us updated on your search." He responds back

"Will do." As we walk past the front desk to the door Rhonda's cell phone goes off.

She pulls it out of her purse and hit the answer button. "Go for Lloyd. Oh! Hi Daddy! What do you mean strange charges on the credit card?"

"Excuse me, are you Mr. Shortman?" I turn around to see a woman from behind the front desk looking at me.

"Um, yes… Why?" I ask walking over.

"No daddy! Everything is fine here, I'm sure there must be a mistake or someone took my card." I hear Rhonda say.

"There is a problem with your room." 'Oh shit' I think to myself

"Problem? What kind of problem?" I ask.

"No daddy there is no need to call the authorities! I can handle this daddy! No why would Curly be here? I'm a grown woman Dad! FINE!" I turned around from the hotel staff lady to look at Rhonda. Her eyes were red like she's about to cry.

"Mr. Shortman, about the room."

**AN: **Ha Ha! I figured it out. now that I know how to do it I'll chain upload the other chapters.


	3. Chapter 3

"The room, yes sorry. What is wrong?" I turn back to the lady having to leave Rhonda to the others and find out what happened later.

"Well when our room service server came back from your room she logged that it was quote "very messy and stunk of alcohol and drunk kids"." Ok, not as bad as I feared.

"Oh, where sorry about that, it's our first time in Vegas and I guess we went a little too crazy. We can pay for any damages we did." I say scratching the back of my head.

She starts typing at the computer behind the desk. "Well it shows that you used your winnings from the casino to pay for the room so we can just take the costs of the cleanup out of that."

"Really? That's great, thank you." I say hearing that we wouldn't have to fork out cash to pay for what we did to the room.

"No problem, now you're going to have to wait till tomorrow to claim your winnings so we have time to clean the room."

"Ok, that works. Um is there anything else?"

"Nope, have a good day Mr. Shortman and congratulations on your marriage."

"Thanks." I say instinctively as I head back to the others. "Rhonda what happened?" I ask when I reach them.

Curly was holding her as she sobs lightly. "My dad said if I don't come home today He'll cut me off. But I don't want to leave what kind of person would I be if I abandoned my friends?"

"I don't know who you would be, but I know you wouldn't be the Rhonda I'm retarded for and have been for years." 'Wow that was cheese Curly.' I think, but I guess Rhonda didn't. She started snickering at him.

"Thank you Curly, I needed a laugh." She stands up straight wiping her eyes. "If my dad wants to cut me off, fine I can stand on my own two feet and show people that I don't need my father's money."

"Good for you Rhonda." Nadine says encourages her best friend.

"Yeah Rhonda, show the world you don't need family money." I tell her as we walk out the door.

Squinting as we step out into the sun I pull out the receipts and flip through to the one for the tattoo shop.

"So how should we go about getting around the city?" Curly asks.

I stopped in my tracks. "Crap, I haven't thought of that, we could walk?"

"I could call the limo that we rode in yesterday." Rhonda says.

"Um Rhonda." Nadine says "Your dad has probably put a stop on your credit card." Rhonda stopped pulling her phone out of her purse.

"Crap, you're probably right, well I'm out of ideas." She closes her purse.

"So walk then?" I say.

"Wait, I have an idea." Curly says as he runs over to the valet guy and starts talking to him.

"Should we be afraid?" Helga asks.

"Um maybe." I say as we watch Curly talk to the Valet.

After a just a few words exchanged Curly comes back over to us. "Ok guys follow me, I have a plan."

"A plan?" Helga crosses her arms.

"Yes a plan, now follow me." He grabs Rhonda and pulls her along after him. We follow Curly down the sidewalk and around the corner and down the side street.

"Ta da!" Curly says turning around to us and pointing to a rental dealership. "We can just rent something for the day."

"Good thinking Curly." I say.

"I have my moments."

"That he does." Rhonda grabs him and gives a big kiss.

"What was that for?" He asks. "Not that I'm complaining."

"For being your crazy creative self." She lets go of him and walks past him with everyone else.

I give him a pat on the back as I walk past him myself. "Come along lover boy."

"Says the guy who got hitched." He remarks as we walk to join the others.

"Yeah." I pinch the brim of my nose. "I have no idea what to do about that."

"You'll figure something out Arnold. You always do."

"Thanks." I say as we enter the rental office.

"Good news guys!" Rhonda runs over to us. "Daddy hasn't locked my card yet so I was able to rent us a car."

"Nice, I hope it's big enough."

The car turned out to be a minivan that had seen better days.

"Not what I would expect from your Rhonda" Helga says as we survey the van.

"It was the only thing they had that was big enough for all eight of us, it was the best they had."

"Its fine Rhonda, mind if I drive?" I Ask.

"Sure." She hands me the keys. "Less for me to do." I walk around and unlock the driver's side door and hit the unlock button to unlock the other doors.

"I call shotgun!" Harold yells.

"Hold it Pink Boy, shotgun goes to the driver's wife." Helga says stopping Harold.

"What really?"

"Yep, so to the back with you." She says as she climbed into the front with me. She buckled herself in then looks at me. "Why are you smiling?" She asks.

I just shake my head. "No reason. Dear." I add some emphasis to the last word.

"You're funny." She says smiling back at me. "So what way do we need to go Nadine?" She turned around to ask Nadine.

"Hold on." She says looking through the map we got from the renter. "Ok, if I'm reading this right we need to head over a few streets then head east for a few miles."

The drive didn't take us very long, though Sid and Harold fought in the back seat like a couple of kids and only stopped when Helga threatened to throw them out of the car. They even apologized like little kids. I pull up to the side of the road where Nadine told me to.

"This should be the right part of town." She says folding up the map.

"Let's find out." I turn off the van and we all climb out. A few shops down the street is the tattoo parlor where looking for.

Helga grabs my arm and turns me. "Arnold, look." She points across the street.

'Well this is convenient.' I think as I look at what Helga is pointing out to me. "The For Ever Love Chappell and Salon, convenient."

"What is?" Stinky asks.

"That is most likely where we got married." I say pointing to the Chappell/ salon.

"Should we split up and check both places at the same time?" Curly asks.

"It will save time and get us closer to finding Eugenie." I say agreeing with him. "So Helga and I are going across the street."

"Me and Curly are going with you." Rhonda adds.

"Ok, everyone else check out the tattoo place, see if they remember us and if we had Eugenie with us." I tell them.

"You got it Arnold." Sid says as we part ways. The four of us cross the street and head into the Chappell.

A bell rings as I push open the door. "Hello! Welcome to For Ever Love, Oh it's you kids again! Welcome Welcome!" An older woman says recognizing us 'This is the right place for sure'. "It's always nice to see our happy couple's return, have your friends come to join together as well?" She asked hugging me and then Helga.

"No, um actually we can't remember anything from last night and we were hoping you could help fill in some details." I say scratching the back of my neck.

"Oh sure of course dearie. Oh I just remember, wait hear a second." She headed off into the backroom of the shop. This gave us a chance to look around, the shop itself looked like most hair salons I've seen, except for the wedding altar in the corner of the shop.

The lady came back waving a picture as she walked. "You left before it printed out, here you go dearies." She hands Helga the picture.

"What is it?" I ask leaning over to look at the picture.

"It's your wedding photo, comes free with the marriage certificate." She says as I look at the picture. It's of me and Helga standing at the altar that is in the corner of the room kissing. I've never seen a picture of us kissing before so I can't say if we anyways showed that much love for each other, but I could see the love I clearly have for her in this picture. Helga is holding what looks like a bouquet of fake flowers and wearing a veil. I made the guess that this was taken right at the "you may now kiss the bride" part of the ceremony.

"Thanks." Helga says rolling up the picture with care.

"You're welcome dearie, it's been awhile since I've had couples so obvious in love as you come in, most of the customers I get are drunk and come looking for an annulment the next day. It warms my old heart seeing you still together."

"Um, glad we made you happy. Now about last night, when we came in did we have a curly red hair guy with us?"

"Hum…" She scratches her chin. "Oh yes!" She snapped her fingers. "He was with you, he and that very tall young lady where being giggly in the corner as my daughter died your hair." She pointed to Rhonda. "You kept saying "I can make any hair color fashionable" and then convinced this young man to shave his head." She said.

"That sounds like something you would say Rhonda." Curly says looking over to Rhonda.

With a sigh like she was holding in a breath Rhonda says. "It does, damn my arrogance."

"I kind of like it though."

"Is there anything else you could tell us? Our friend went missing sometime last night." I ask her hoping for a lead.

"There was the gentleman with the long nose that was holding onto a briefcase for dear life the whole time, I thought it was strange, but you get that a lot in this town." 'Long nose? Must be Sid'.

"Thank you very much Ms.?" I say not sure what her name is.

"Mrs. Foreverlove." She says answering my question.

"Mrs. Foreverlove, again, thank you for your help." I say

"You're welcome dearie, now come hear." She grabs me into another hug and kissed me on the cheek and then does the same to Helga who surprisingly was more concerned about keeping the picture safe than getting kissed by a stranger. "Good luck in finding your friend, I'm sure you just got separated. And you two, best of luck in your new life together. I have a feeling that you two will be happy together for a long time." I didn't have the heart to tell her than it was a drunken mistake and that we will probably get it annulled when we get back to Hillwood.

"Good bye Mrs. Foreverlove." I tell her as we make for the door. Helga stops a small table with all kinds of hair accessories, looks to see where Mrs. Foreverlove is. She was walking back to the backroom of the shop, Helga pulls out a few dollars from her purse and drops them on the table and picks up a hair scrunchy and wraps it around the rolled up picture to keep it rolled up. She then puts it carefully into her purse. She must want to keep the picture as a memento.

As we leave the shop I see a few strange guys standing around the van. The others must still be in the tattoo parlor and when we crossed the street the strangers spot us but don't move away from the van.

"Can we help you?" I ask them when we reach them.

"We've been looking for you kids, you took something of our bosses and he wants it back." One of the guys says as he played with a butterfly knife.

"We don't remember taking anything from anyone last night, hell we don't remember anything at all from last night." I tell him.

"Look kid, our boss was shooting craps with you kids last night. He had a briefcase that has something very important to him in it. He says you took it, so you have to bring it back or you won't get your friend back."

"Wait, our friend? You have Eugene?" I say surprised.

"We have something you want, and you have something we want. You bring the case to this address." He pulls out a card and hands it to me. "And we'll give you back your friend, you got five hours." He snapped his fingers and the others followed him as he walked down the street and into a black SUV and takes off.

"Shit." I say as I lean up against the van.

"Shit indeed Arnold, what are we going to do?" Helga asks leaning next to me.

"Ok." I pinch the brim of my nose. "We can safely assume that the briefcase they want is the one Mrs. Foreverlove said Sid had, so we lost it between when we got married and when we woke up this morning. Which is about nine hours, that's a big window of time. And now we have five hours to find it."

"Hey." Helga grabs my hand and laces her fingers with mine and gives my hand a squeeze. "We'll figure this out, you've never failed before."

I look at her and she has a look of concern on her face. "Thank you Helga."

"You're welcome Arnold." She kisses me on the cheek.

"Hey guys, we got a lead." I look up at the sound of Stinky's voice and see the others walking down the sidewalk to us.

"And we have some bad news." Curly says.

Just then my phone starts ringing. I pull it out and look at it, Its Gerald and my phone is past 25% power. I answer it. "Hey, what's up?"

"Phoebe figured something out." He says.

"What?" I ask getting up from leaning on the van, still holding Helga's hand.

"She called one of her preMed friends and they were able to figure out that it was most likely Roofline that we took last night."

"Roofies? Well at least we know what we took."

"Yeah, so how goes the search?"

"The search?" I look to Helga. "It's going good, we have a lead we are going to follow, how's Sheena?" I ask wanting to change the subject.

"She's ok, it looks like a small case of food poisoning from the fast food."

"Well at least she can get better from that. Hey Sorry but my phone is low on power so I'll call you when I have more intel."

"Alright later man."

"Later." I hand up my phone and put it back into my pocket.

"Why didn't you tell him those guys have Eugene?" Helga asked.

"I didn't want Sheena to maybe overhear that he's most likely been kidnapped."

"Wait, Eugene was kidnapped?" Sid says as they reached us.

I tell them what happened when we got back to the van and that we have to find that briefcase in less than five hours and to bring it to the address the guy gave me.

"Well I had the case when we were in the shop." Sid says sounding guilty. He probably feels like he's the reason our friend is missing.

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, the shop guy said we asked how to get to the Strange Creatures Museum. They told us it was across from the train station." Harold says.

"Ok, well it's the next best place to look." I say. I unlock my door and clime in and unlock the rest of the doors for the others.

Traffic had picked up and we were not moving fast. I lean back in my seat as the traffic stops, I keep my left hand on the wheel and let my right fall to my side. "This is ridiculous" I say.

"Yeah, traffic was never like this in Hillwood." Helga says agreeing with me.

"Hillwood isn't as big as Vegas is." Curly says from the back.

"Guys, we're only a few blocks away." Nadine says looking over her map.

"Good, cause I need to use a restroom." Harold says from his seat behind Curly, Rhonda and Nadine's.

"Hold it in Harold." I tell him.

It took us almost twenty minutes to drive the last few blocks in this stop and go traffic and to get over to the side of the road. Luckily the Museum had a parking lot and was on the corner so it was easy to park. When we get out of the van I feel the need to use the restroom myself.

Inside the museum the guy behind the desk tells us that there is no public restroom, but there is one in the gas station across the street.

"I'm going to go with Harold to use the toilet." I tell the others. "Look around and ask questions, we'll be back soon." I give Helga a quick kiss and say quietly without thinking to her. "Love you."

"Love you too Arnold." She says just as quietly with a little laugh.

"Come on Harold." I say and we walk out of the museum.

We walk across the parking lot and stop at the crossing light.

"Hey Arnold, I want to say I'm really sorry."

"It's ok Harold, we all make mistakes." I tell him with a smile.

"But this is so much bigger than a simple mistake, Sheena's sick, Rhonda may get disowned by her father, Eugene is gone and you got married. I fucked up big time." The light changed and we start walking across the street.

"It'll be ok Harold, She will get better, Rhonda can talk to her dad, and we know how to get him back. Everything can be fixed."

"What about you and Helga?" He asked as we stepped onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

"What about us?"

"The mirage, are you guys going to get it annulled?"

"Oh! Yeah, we probably will."

"Sounds like you might not want to there Arnold."

"Don't go getting any crazy ideas Harold." I tell him.

"I already had one." He says lifting up the sleeve showing me the tattoo he got.

Laughing I say "I guess we all had a bad idea last night."

We both just laugh as I push open the door to the gas station. "Hello." I say to the clerk.

He just looks over at us with a look like he didn't want to be there. "Hi." He says his voice matching his look.

"So um, can we use the restroom?" I ask.

"It's for paying customers only."

"Ah man, I really have to go!" Harold says starting to get antsy.

"I'll buy us something while you go, is that ok?" I ask the clerk.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." He says.

"Thanks!" Harold runs off to the back of the store.

I walk down the aisle of the shop looking for something to buy but I can't focus on the items. My mind keeps going over everything that has happened like it has been all day. We drank champagne that had roofies in it that Harold thought was ecstasy and we went out. We saw a show, did some gambling and must have drunk a lot of alcohol. Harold got a tattoo, Rhonda got her hair dyed pink (which now that the shock of it all has worn off is a little funny) Curly shaved his hair off and Helga and I got married. And most of all Eugene is missing and is in the captivity of a group of probably gang members.

"I wonder what Helga thinks about this." I say to myself looking down at my ring. I know that she's been head over heels about me for as long as we've know each other. Which I was clueless about until she told me about it on our two year anniversary. When I had asked her about why she waited so long to tell me this she said;

"It's hard for me to open up about my feelings and I had to make sure I wasn't dreaming these past two years." The kiss I gave her after that, according to her, confirmed that she wasn't dreaming.

I never even thought of what Helga and I would do after we finished school I was always too focused on school and keeping my grades up.

"Well I guess I'll need to start thinking about it." I snapped back to reality and see that I've grabbed a bottle of water and am in front of the rack of candy bars. I grab two Mr. Nutty bars and head over to the clerk. I pull out my wallet to pay for the things and see the picture I have of me and Helga in front of our college on the day we moved in to the dorm with Gerald and Phoebe. We were laughing, I had a box in my hands and Helga was dumping another on top of it. I give a little laugh at the memory of that day.

"Here's your change." The clerk says handing me a bunch of coins. I put the coin in my pocket and fell the unknown key.

"Thanks." I say cheerfully and step off to the side and wait for Harold.

He walks out of the restroom and I hand him my things. "One of the candy bars is for you, I'll be right back."

"Ok, I'll be outside." He says taking the candy bars and water and heads outside.

I didn't take long in the restroom and joined Harold outside. "Ready to head back"

"Let me go get something to drink." He says handing me my water and the other Mr. Nutty bar.

"Ok." He heads into the store and I put the candy bar into my pocket. I feel the key again in my pocket and pull it out. I look over the key, it's a little smaller than my room key and it has the letters LVX on one side and A743 on the other. I twist it in my fingers looking at it while taking a drink from my water.

A dining sound starts up but it's far enough away that I ignore it.

"Hey look, the train crossing sign is coming down, a train must be on its way." Harold says as he came outside.

I look away from the key an over to where he was pointing. I see the arms of the crossing sign come down. It has the traditional sign that is two planks crossed that says Railroad Crossing on it. I look at the sign, then to the key and then back to the sign. A light clicks in my head.

"Harold! That's it! Come on." I take off to get back to the others.

"What are you talking about Arnold?" Harold says running after me.

"No time to explain now, I'll tell you when we get to the others." I start mashing the cross walk light button. "Come on, come on…" I say impatiently.

The light changes over and I rush over to the entrance to the museum. I skid to a stop right in front of the door as Helga and the others are coming out.

"Whoa where's the fire Arnold?" Helga says grabbing me by my shoulders.

"Sorry." I say as she lets go of me.

"It's ok, so I guess we got kicked out of here last night after someone." She shoots Sid a quick glare. "Was caught messing with one of the exhibits trying to hide a briefcase in the mouth of one of the exhibits."

"I know where the briefcase is." I say after she finishes.

"What? Where?"

"Come on I'll show you." I grab her hand and start pulling her back to the intersection.

"Where are we going?"

"To the train station."

"Why the train station?" She asks as we stop at the light.

"This is why." I show her the key.

"It's the key from this morning, so what?"

"Look at it, it says LVX on it." I hand her the key.

"I don't follow you."

"The key is a locker key." I say talking the key back and start crossing the street.

"Hey Arnold! Wait up man!" I look back to see the others racing after us.

"Sorry guys. I got caught up in my discovery." I say as the others caught up to us.

"It's ok, now where is the briefcase?" Rhonda says.

"I'm betting that it's in one of the lockers in the train station."

"Really? Let's get in there!" Stinky says.

We head inside the station and find the wall of lockers.

"Look for number A743." I say as we spread out. I start looking over one section and start feeling nervous. I unintentionally start playing with my ring by spinning it around my ring finger.

"There is no order to these lockers." Curly says from down the row.

"I know. I have B751 and then right next to it A100. What the fuck man?" Helga says from the other side of me.

"Just keep looking guys, we need to find the locker." Nadine says.

A few minutes go by with no luck finding the locker I'm still playing with my ring.

"Hey guys! I found it!" Sid says from the very end of the wall of lockers.

We all rush over to where he's standing pointing at a locker. I see that it is numbered A743 when I get to it.

"Ok guys." I kneel down to be at level with the locker. "Here we go." I stick the key into the lock and turn it. It clicks and the locker door opens a little bit. I pull it open and inside is a small black briefcase.

"This has to be it." I say pulling out the briefcase. "Alright, we got it now let's get going." I say standing up.

"Don't you want to see what's inside it?" Sid asks.

"Nope, the less we know about what's inside this the better." I say standing up.

"Come on, aren't any of you guy's curious as to what it is?"

"I agree with Arnold. You weren't there and did not see these guys, even I wouldn't want to mess with these guys." Helga says agreeing with me.

"They couldn't be that bad." Sid says still wanting to look inside the briefcase.

"Sid, I will hurt you if you look in that bag." Helga says getting angry at him.

"Ok I won't." He says holding up his hands in fear of what she would do to him.

"Right, now let's get to this meeting place."

We head back across the street and to the van and my phone rings.

I pull it out and see its Gerald. "Hey man what's up?" I say answering the phone.

"Hey man just letting you know that Sheena is feeling loads better, she seemed to have yacked it out and is sleeping now."

"That's good, so I have some good news, we should have Eugene back soon."

"That's great man! Where was-" the call cuts out.

I pull the phone away from my ear and see that it has died. "Shit my phone died." I put it back into my pocket.

"I'll text him and let him know it died and that well let him know what's up when we get back." Helga says taking out her phone.

"Thanks" I say as we climb into the van.


	4. Chapter 4

The address they said to meet at was on the outskirts of the other side of town. All that was around was a Mexican fast food and a lamp post.

"You sure this is the right place?" I ask Nadine as I pull to the side of the road.

"Trust me, after spending that semester as Dr. Niko Tatopoulos assistant I know how to read a map. He was always too focused on worms and finding them than where we were."

"Ok, its game time." Helga says as the black SUV pulls up and parks under the lamp post. She opens her door and gets out.

I grab the briefcase and exit the van. I walk around to the front of the van where Helga is. She's digging through her purse and pulls out her old pink ribbon she used to wear as her bow.

"I didn't know you still had that."

She uses it to tie her hair back behind her head. "I keep it for when I need to tie my hair back." She puts on her game face as she finishes tying her hair back.

The others had gotten out of the van and gather around us as the doors to the SUV open.

"You're late." The guy from earlier says as he and the others get out.

"We got here before you did, how can WE be late?" Helga asks.

"Don't get smart with me girl, you got our briefcase?"

"You got our friend?" I ask as I hold up the case.

He knocks on the hood of the SUV a little Asian guy steps out pulling along another who has a bag over there head. The two new guys walk over to the front of the car.

"Hey what's with all the people? You guys cops?" the Asian guy asks.

"No. Do we look like cops?" Helga says back.

"Don't care." He pulls out a gun from behind his back. "All but you two get back." He points at me and Helga with the gun.

"Shit!" I say feeling more scared than I ever have. "Ok, ok, ok. Guys get back." I wave the others back and they all flee behind the van.

Still pointing the gun he says; "You two walk forward with the briefcase in front of you."

I take a deep breath to try and calm my trembling nerves. It didn't help much, I move the briefcase into my left hand and hold it in front of me. I jump a little when I feel Helga's hand slide into mine and lase her fingers with mine. I look over to her and give her a quick smile and she gives my hand a reassuring squeeze as we start walking towards the guys.

"That's far enough." He says when we walked only a few feet. "Girly stay there, blonde you come here with my bag."

With another squeeze from Helga I let her hand go and start walking towards them afraid for my life. 'I can do this, Eugene NEEDS me to do this.' I think as I walk up to them.

"Here is your briefcase, now let me have my friend back." I hold out the briefcase to them. The guy from earlier snatches it out of my hand and opens it up.

"Boss, it's the right one." He says looking over to the Asian guy.

He pushes the bagged guy away who stumbles over to Helga. "Let me see. Let me see!" He says running over. He reaches into the bag and pulls out what is inside. It looks like a book of some kind.

"Is that a damn comic book?" Helga asks.

"It's not just any comic book girly. It's an Action Comic number One. This is worth several million."

"What the hell? Brainy? What are you doing here?" I look back at Helga and see that she had taken the bag off. It wasn't Eugene but in fact our old friend from high school that we haven't seen in years, Brainy.

"You said you had our friend, where is Eugene?" I ask them.

"He is your friend, he was at the craps table with you last night. I don't know of a Eugene. You got a problem with the trade?"

"Yes, I mean no. look you got what you want, and were sorry we took it. We squared?" I ask feeling less afraid now that he's not pointing a gun at me.

He looks at me, puts the book back into the briefcase and his guys start getting into the SUV. "We squared." He then punches me in the face and I fall to the ground. "No one steals from Jang." He spits on the ground next to me and climbs into the SUV. And they start up the SUV and take off.

The dust starts settling as I get up off the ground watching the car driving off into the desert and dust myself off. I look back at our car, everyone is still hiding behind it sept for Helga.

With a deep sigh I look to her and say; "Make the call."

She takes out her phone and taps the screen a few times. "Phoebe its Helga, we didn't get him. We thought Eugene was being held by these thugs that wanted this valuable comic back. They said they had our friend but it turned out to be Brainy. Yeah I guess we must have run into him last night. Well bring him with us back to the hotel. Ok, we'll see you when we get there." She hangs up the phone and looks over to me. "What now Arnold?"

I'm covering my right eye where he hit me as I walk back to the van. "I don't know. That was our only lead. Ahh this hurts." I say my eye stinging.

"Let me look." She pulls my hand away from my eye. "It doesn't look too bad but you're going to want to get some ice on that. Harold and Curly you go get some ice from that joint over there." She points to the Mexican fast food place.

They go without saying a thing, Rhonda and Nadine come over to me and Helga. "Are you ok Arnold?" Rhonda asks.

"Yeah that was scary as hell, you very brave, both of you are. Sid and Stinky are frozen from fear still." Nadine adds.

"Trust me, I was scared out of my mind the whole time. I've never had a gun pointed at me before." I say covering my eye back up. "Think one of you could drive us back? I don't think I can."

"I'll drive us back to the hotel." Helga says walking me over to the passenger side door of the van.

"Hey Arnold." Brainy says. 'Crap, I forgot he was here.' I think to myself taken back for a fraction of a second cause of his voice.

"Thanks for saving me from them. I don't know what happened to you guys after you left the casino but it must have been a crazy night." Brainy's voice still doesn't sound right, even after all this time since he had the throat surgery to fix his berthing problem.

"No problem man, I wish we know what we did last night too, all we have are bits and pieces we've gotten from various clues. We all were drugged last night and can't remember anything." I say as I opened the van door and lean against the seat.

"Wow that sounds terrible, it was great seeing you guys last night. Especially you Helga." He looks over to her and blushes a little. 'Please tell me he's not flirting with my wife. Wait, did I just call her my wife?' I think to myself.

"I will hurt you Brainy. Plus I'm a married woman now. And as I've said every time in the past, back the fuck off creep." Helga says casually.

"Ok ok, sorry. When did you get married?" He asks trying to change the subject.

"We, Helga and I did it last night." I answer his question with a little anger in my voice.

"Oh, well congratulations."

"Where back." I hear Harold yell.

"What took you so long Pink Boy?" Helga yells at Harold.

"We figured everyone was getting hungry, so we bought everyone a burrito." He holds up a while plastic bag. "Here is your ice Arnold." He hands me a little pile of ice wrapped in several napkins.

"Thanks man." I say talking the ice and place it on my eye. The Ice hurts at first but the cold starts to make the pain ease.

"Yeah, good thinking Harold. I am getting hungry." Helga says.

"Thanks, here you go everyone." He hands out a burrito to everyone and having to hit Sid and Stinky with there's to snap them back to reality.

"So now what?" Curly asks.

"We go back to the hotel, file a missing person's report I guess." I say with a sound of defeat in my voice.

The ride back to the hotel was quiet. No one said a word and if someone saw us they would have thought we just came back from a funeral. When we get back to the hotel Rhonda and Curly go to return the van to the rental dealership.

"Well wait for you guys to come back. It's best if we all go and face Sheena together." I tell Rhonda as she turns on the van.

"We will be back in a few minutes. And Arnold."

"Yeah?"

"This isn't your fault and it isn't your failure, its all of ours." She says reading the defeat on my face.

"Thanks Rhonda." I give her a smile and they drive off. I walk over and sit down with the rest on the sidewalk. We don't say anything to each other, and Helga who's sitting to the right of me leans over and rests her head on my shoulder. I start playing with my ring again.

"You've been doing that a lot all day." She says to me.

"Hum?" I say staring off into space.

"Playing with your ring, I've seen you doing that all day. Like it's something you always do."

"Oh, I haven't noticed I was doing that much. I guess I've just been doing it out of instinct."

"Well you have, and it's kind of cutie." Her comment made me blush a little.

"Where back." I hear Curly say and look over towards the direction his voice. Curly and Rhonda are holding hands as they walked down the sidewalk to us.

"Let's head in because I really need a shower." Rhonda says when they reached us.

"Same here." Helga says as we stand up.

We all start walking to the door to the door of the hotel. "Hey guys, I need to be getting home." Brainy says.

I stop and turn to him and hold out my hand. "Alright man, it was good to see you even though we don't remember it."

He shakes my hand. "Yeah, we should get together again sometimes."

"Yeah, if you're ever back in Hillwood hit me up."

"And if you're ever in Vegas again do the same."

"It might be a while before any of us come back, but I'll keep it in mind."

"Later." He says as he starts walking away.

"Later Brainy." I say back to him.

Sid pulls open the door and we all walk in and I was taken back by who we saw inside the hotel.

"Hi guys." Sheena says as the last of us walked in.

"Sheena, what are you doing down here?" I ask her.

"I needed to stretch my legs, Phoebe said I shouldn't but I was getting too antsy."

"Well it's good to see you feeling better." Nadine says.

"Thanks." She says as a guy walks past her.

"Hey I know you!" Harold says pointing to the guy.

"Me?" the guy says.

"Yeah, guys that's him. The guy what sold me the drugs." Harold says lowering his voice for the last part.

"You're sure it's him Harold?" Rhonda asks.

"Oh yeah I remember you, so did you kids have fun last night?" the guy says sounding like he was boasting.

"Fun?! You sold this idiot roofies." Rhonda says getting mad.

"What? I did? Shit, Marlin is going to be mad at me."

"OH you're going to have a lot to worry about." Rhonda pushes up her sleeves and starts walking toward him.

Curly grabs her arm know that she was going attack him. "Rhonda, he's not worth it."

"Let me go, I need to hurt him."

"No you don't, you're better than that."

"You're the gentlemen that sold Harold what you thought was ecstasy?" Sheena asks him.

"Yeah sorry about that mix up kids, you want some of the real stuff?" He asks ignoring Rhonda's struggle against Curly holding her back.

"No thank you, I just wish to return the jester." Sheena says.

"Jester?" He asks.

"This." She punches him in the chest as hard as she can knocking the wind out of him and back several steps.

"What the hell bitch?" He says as I rush over to stop her from hitting him again. I've never seen Sheena hit anyone before.

"Because of you my Eugene is missing!" She yells.

"Bitch it's not my fault that you can keep track of your man." He had recovered from the punch and was walking towards us.

"That was a big mistake girl. You're going to pay for hitting me."

"Back off man, she just upset." I say trying to calm him down and stepping in front of Sheena.

"No you back off or I'll hurt you too. No one hits me." He's right in front of us.

"Hey." Helga says tapping him on the shoulder.

He turns and looks at her. "What the hell you want?"

"No one threatens my friend, or my husband." She then punches him in the face and he falls to the ground.

"Told you I'd have to hit someone again." She says looking at me.

"Jesus Helga, did you kill him?" Sid asks as the others join us.

"I don't think so, just knocked him out." She says looking at the guy on the ground.

"What is going on here?" one of the hotel employees says running over to us.

"Sorry about that, this guy was threatening to hurt my husband and friend over a small disagreement. Also you might want to call the cops, I think this guy is a drug dealer." Helga says like what just happened was no big deal.

"Yeah he was trying to sell us something called ecstasy." Sheena says adding to Helga's kind of lie.

"Oh well sorry you had to go through all that, but next time please tell a hotel staff member when there is someone causing trouble."

"Will do boss. Shall we go upstairs now?" She asks us.

"Yeah let's get back to our room." I say to her. We walk over and enter the elevator when it arrives.

While riding up Harold says; "You know from what I've heard of roofies and what they are used for, I don't get why they're called roofies, you don't end up on the roof, you end up on the floor."

"They should call them floories, or groundies." Sid says.

"Wait what did you say?" I ask him as something in my head clicks as he said that.

"I was just saying that the name for that drug, it's kind of got an odd name." Harold says

"No after that."

"You don't end up on the roof?"

"The roof…" I say trying to rack my brain. Thinking as hard as I can on the topic of roofs, I remember going up to the roof the boarding house a lot. My first kiss with Helga on Rhonda's roof and the group taking a picture on top of the high school after graduation. We had to sneak up there to take it and we ended up getting busted by the principle. We all got a copy of the picture and we all made a promise on it that we'd always be there for the big ones.

"Wait the roof." It finally clicks. "Guys the roof!"

"What about it?" Nadine asks.

"Remember how we went up on the roof of the school after graduation. We wanted a great picture to remember our time together in school."

"Yeah and we got busted." Helga says.

"Well I'm willing to bet we did the same thing last night." I Say as the elevator door opens.

"I don't follow you." Rhonda says.

I run over and knock on my room door. "What's up man?" Gerald asks.

"I think I figured out where Eugene is."

"What where?"

"The roof."

"The roof?"

"Yes come on." I grab his arm and pull him out the door.

Phoebe pops her head out of the door. "What's going on?"

"Arnold says he knows where Eugene is." Gerald says as I pull him down the hall.

"What where?" She closes the door and rushes to catch up to me pulling Gerald along.

"He's on the roof." I say as we get into the elevator. I explain as we ride the elevator up to the top floor. We hit the top floor and we start looking for a way up to the roof. 'Come on, where is it?' I think as I look around.

"Guys over here." Gerald yells. "I found the stairs up."

I run to where I heard his voice come from and find him holding a door open. Sheena doesn't stop and runs right up the stairs and we follow her. She's at the top of the stairs before I even get into the stairwell.

"I'm coming Eugene." She says slamming the door open and runs on to the roof.

"Someone keep the door open." I say as I follow her onto the roof.

"Got it" Stinky says stopping to keep the door open.

The roof was covered in air ducts and heating and cooling units. Sheena's standing there looking left and right like she's trying to figure out which way to look. She picks left and runs down the roof saying; "Eugene? Where are you?"

"Sheena?" I hear a weak voice say.

She stopped running; "Eugene!" She starts looking around again and then takes off again in between two rows of air ducts. I'm trying to keep up with here but she's too fast and keeps making sharp turns.

She makes another quick sharp turn and I lose sight of her; "Eugene! Eugene! I found you!"

I turn the corner and I find Sheena on the ground hugging Eugene who was sitting on the ground.

"Sheena, you're hugging me too hard, I can't breathe." Eugene says gasping.

"I'm sorry." She loosens her hug. "I thought I had lost you."

"What do you mean? I was just too slow following you guys down last night."

"We didn't know where you were this morning. Harold mistakenly put roofalin in the champagne last night and we couldn't remember anything from last night." She pulls back but still holds him by the shoulders.

"We were drugged! That's terrible. But I'm sure Harold is sorry he did it." Eugene says

"Oh Eugene your so forgiving, it's one of the things I adore about you."

His face goes red. "Oh, well I adore you too Sheena."

"Eugene if this whole day as shown me anything is that I don't ever want to be apart from you."

"I don't quite follow Sheena."

"I love you Eugene. And I'm sorry that it took the idea of never seeing you again for me to realize it." She didn't give him time to respond, she just pulled him into a kiss. At first his face was full of shock, but it relaxed and he kisses her back.

Backing away I say; "I'll leave you two alone, we'll be back at the door." I turn the corner and run into Helga.

"Did you guys find him?" She asks

"Yeah, they are going to need a minute or two."

"What? Oh… heh heh ok then." She turns around and we walk back to the door to the roof.

I explain to the others what happened and shortly after that Sheena and Eugene walk around holding hand blushing and smiling from ear to ear. We didn't say anything to them, we didn't want to kill there moment. We head down the stairs and ride the elevator down to our floor.

"I know it's only like eight in the evening, but I think I'm going to call it a night guys." Rhonda says as the evader door dings open on our floor.

"Same here, this has been an exhausting day." Helga says agreeing with her. Everyone else agrees to end the day and after a few room changes (Sheena didn't want to leave Eugene so her and Curly trade sleeping quarters) we all say goodnight and retire to our rooms.

"I'm going to take a shower, you need to use the restroom before I start?" Helga asks me after I closed the door to our room.

"Na, I'm good, I'll probably take one after you."

She gives me a quick kiss. "Ok, I shouldn't be too long, and no pranks ok?"

"You got it." She walks into the bathroom closes the door and I fall back onto the bed and kick off my shoes.

I just wanted to lie down and relax but I ended up falling asleep. I woke up several hours later and find that Helga had climbed into bed and had fallen asleep herself. She was resting her head on my chest and had her arm draped over me in a half hug. I just looked down at her and admired how innocent she looked and give her a kiss on the head and say; "Love you Helga." And put my arms around her.

"Mmmm love you too, Arnold." She says sleep talking.

I sinker a little and then just lay back down and let myself fall back asleep.

**AN: **Sorry that I didn't get the chapters posted as fast as I said I would, something came up and I couldn't keep working on getting them up. Part five (the final leg of the story) is almost done, just needs to be re read for errors and editing, so when I get the time to do it I'll get it up.


	5. Chapter 5

I awake sometime in the morning Helga is still asleep on my chest and I'm still holding her. I really didn't want to wake her up be I needed to use the toilet. So I carefully try and move her off of me, but when I moved her she holds onto me tighter.

With a sigh I give her a gentle shake to wake her and say; "Helga, can you wake up, I need to use the bathroom."

Helga makes a noise in defiance but opens her eyes. "But I'm so comfortable."

"So am I, but I got to pee."

"Fine, but I want my pillow back ASAP." She says sliding over to let me up.

"You got it." I say getting up and walking to the bathroom door.

When I go to wash my hands I take my ring off and set it on the counter to keep it from getting wet. While washing them I keep looking at the ring and a feeling of dread comes over me when I think about the inevitable conversation I'm going to have to have with Helga about our drunken mirage. I really didn't want to talk to her about it, at first I couldn't believe we did that, but now after everything that happened yesterday I'm a little happy that we did. I love Helga and I don't want a life without her. But we need to talk about this. So after turning off the water drying my hands and putting my ring back on I take a deep breath to calm myself and open the door; "Hey. Um... I think it's time we should-"

"Go down get some breakfast? Sure but you might want to take a shower first." She says cutting me off.

'We can wait till after eating to talk' I think. "Ok, I'll do that, you wana see if Gerald and Phoebe are up and want to go too?" I ask as I grab my bag and head back into the bathroom.

"Sure." She says as I close the door.

After showering we head down with Gerald and Phoebe and find Sheena, Eugene, Curly and Rhonda already at a table eating. We great them and after we got some food from the breakfast buffet we sat down at the table next to them.

"So what time is our flight home?" I ask Rhonda as I start eating.

"We have a couple of hours before we leave." She says taking a drink from her cup of coffee.

"So what should we do till then?" Phoebe asks.

"As long as it doesn't involve drinking, gambling or a man hunt I'm game." Helga says. We all laugh at her statement.

The others slowly join us and we keep eating making jokes and having a good time. We retell the events of yesterday to those that weren't there killing a lot of our time before we have to leave.

"And when that guy pulled out his gun I thought I was going to piss myself." Sid says telling the story of "The Stand Off" as it has been named. "But you didn't back down you stood your ground, both of you. You two looked like nothing could knock you down."

"Until he punched me in the eye. That literally knocked me on my ass." I added pointing to my eye that has a faint mark left from the punch.

"Well yah, but that was a cheap shot."

"And when you stood between me and that guy that sold Harold the drugs. That was very brave too Arnold." Sheena says adding to the praise I'm getting.

"I was shocked that you punched him, I've never seen you hit someone." I say.

"I don't know what came over me, I hate violence."

"Speaking of punches, Helga's K.O. was amazing." Harold says.

"And the polite tap on the shoulder and then saying "No one threatens my friend, or husband" I was not expecting that." Stinky says.

"You guys are making it sound like we're a pair of movie heroes." Helga says. "I punch people all the time and Arnold is always standing up for what's right."

"Separately yes, but together you two are like The Dream Team." Sid says.

"Well thanks I guess." I say.

"No, thank you Arnold for always having our backs." Eugene says.

"And you too Helga." Sheena adds.

"What about me?" She asks

"Thank you for keeping Old Betsy in shape." Sheena says smiling.

"As long as there are idiots in this world she will always be at the ready." We all laugh.

"Oh Helga, I almost forgot. I had this in my pocket." Eugene says reaching into his pants pocket and pulling out Helga's camera.

"My Camera! I thought I had lost it for good. Thanks Eugene."

"No problem, its dead though."

"That's ok, I'm just happy to have it back." She says putting it into her purse.

"Well I'm going to go see what the damages were to the other room and see if I'll have anything to show for our gambling's." I say getting up. "Care to come with?" I ask looking to Helga.

"Sure why not." She says getting up.

Rhonda looks at her watch and says; "We should be getting ready hear soon. About an hour till we want to be at the airport."

"Ok, well get squared away and be up stairs to pack up soon." I tell her as we walk away.

We walk up to the front desk and talk to the lady (who was the same one from yesterday); "Hi, so yesterday you told me I had to wait to check out of the honeymoon sweet till today if I was going to use my winnings from the casino. Well we are ready to check out and claim whatever is left."

She starts typing on the keyboard. "Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Shortman? Ok I have you here in the computer. Everything seems to be in order, Ok if you just want to head into the casino and give the cashier this slip." She says as she printed out a piece of paper. "They will need to see some ID and they should be able to cash you out."

"Thank you." I tell her talking the peace of paper from her.

"You're welcome, have a good day and once again congratulations."

"What? Oh yes. Thank you, again." I say. I had forgotten than me and Helga still needed to talk about the marriage.

"That was easy." Helga says as we walk towards the casino.

"Yeah it was" 'but this isn't going to be' I think to myself. With a deep breath I look over to the girl I love without any doubt and say; "I think we need to finally talk about us getting married."

She takes a deep breath "I'm not going to lie to you Arnold, I've been dreading this inevitable conversation."

"I haven't been looking forward to it either, but we need to figure out what we are going to do. So, what should we do?"

"Well um what do YOU want to do Arnold?"

"Umm it depends on what you want to do Helga."

"I'm willing to do what you think we should do." I get the feeling that if I don't be forward and tell her the truth we'd be beating around the bush till our fifth wedding anniversary.

So with another deep breath I stop and say; "Ok so at first I was unsure about what to do, I thought maybe we should have it annulled. We are too young to be getting married after all and we were drunk. But as everything was happening yesterday, the idea of us being together for the rest of our lives grew on me." I turn to her, I'm glad she's letting me talk uninterrupted because I don't think I could say this otherwise. "And now Helga, I know that I don't ever want to be without you in my life, you keep me strong when I feel weak. You make me happy when I'm sad, and I'm willing to give this a try, I don't know what we'll do when we get home to Hillwood, but I'm sure we'll figure something out. We are The Dream Team after all." I grab her hands and prepare for the worst.

But it didn't come, Helga just stood there holding my hands. Her eyes start to tear up. "Helga, are you ok?"

She finally breaks her silence; "Yes I'm fine." She lets go of one of my hands to wipe away the tears in her eyes. "Arnold you know I've been in love you with you long before we started dating. And I've known for a very long time that I needed you more than anything in my life and to hear you say the same has made me happier than I have ever been. I've dreamed of us getting married for years and when I saw that we did my heart almost exploded from joy. I want spend the rest of my life with you. But there is still one thing you have to do."

"What's that?" I ask holding back my own joy.

Helga takes off her ring and holds it out to me. "You have to ask me properly."

"I'm pretty sure I already did that though."

"I don't remember it, there for it doesn't count."

Chuckling I take the ring from her. "Ok Helga, you win." I get down on one knee. "Helga G. Pataki, will you spend the rest of your life with me?" I ask holding the ring up to her.

"Like you needed to ask you big idiot." She takes the ring back from me, puts it back on and pulls me up to kiss me. I guess people around us had noticed what we were doing and started clapping.

"I guess we drew a crowd." I say holding her in my arms.

"Heh, we always do." She says back.

I give her another kiss. "Come one Mrs. Shortman, let's see if were rich." I grab her hand and we start walking again.

"You know as your wife I get a say in what we do with your winning."

"Oh yeah? What do you think I, or should I say we should spend it on?"

"Dono yet." She says as we reach the cashier in the casino who is behind a glass window.

"Hello, the lady at the front desk said to give you this and my ID." I say as I set down the slip of paper and pull out my ID from my wallet. The guy pulls the paper and my ID under the window, looks at it then stats typing on his computer.

"Ok, so you won six thousand dollars the other night."

"Holy hell!" Helga says expressing her shock at what we won.

"But after the cost of your room of four thousand and two hundred for cleanup and your room service you have eight hundred left. Do you want it cashed out or in casino chips?"

"Damn that was one expensive room." Helga says.

"Yeah it was, well take it in cash."

"You are aware that the Hotel has no responsibility if you lose it or are robbed after taking possession of your wining." He says sounding like he's said that more times than he would ever admit too.

"Ok, we go it." I say.

He then slides a little stack of hundred dollar bills under the window. "Have a good one."

"Thanks, you too." I say talking the money and putting it in my wallet.

"So we have eight hundred dollars." I say as we start walking out of the casino. "What do you think we should do with it now?" I ask Helga.

"Would six hundred dollars' worth of junk food be a bad idea?" She asks.

Laughing I say; "Yeah it would be. I think we should pay Rhonda back for the initial three hundred that we used to win this."

"That is fair, and still leaves five hundred."

'Five hundred dollars' I think to myself. It is a good amount of money I can think of a lot of little insignificant things we could spend it on, but only one thing I would be happy to use it on.

"So I have an idea of what to use the money on, but you might not like it." I say pushing the call button for the elevator.

"What's that?" She asks as the door dings open.

We step inside the elevator and as the door closes I say; "We could give it to Gerald and Phoebe to help them get set up in California."

"But, but I wanted to be irresponsible…" She says giving me a pouting look. "But it would be the nice thing to do." She leans against the side of the elevator and crosses her arms.

"We don't have to if you don't want to Helga." I say as I push the button for our floor. "I just thought it would be a nice thing to do for our friends." I lean next to her.

"No, it is a good idea. Damn your kind heartedness sometimes."

"Sorry." I say giving her a smile.

"No you're not. You're lucky that I love that about you, always looking to help others."

The door opens at our floor. "And I love your tough exterior that hides your sweet gooey center."

"Are you calling me a Gladebury Eggs?" She asks as we walk down the hall.

"Well you are sweet like one."

"That's it." I feel a little dread come over me so I pick up the pace to try and put some distance between us. "Come here Football Head."

"Nope." I say braking into a full run to our door as she starts running after me.

I get the key into our door and push it open trying to keep the distance between us. "I'm sorry please don't hurt me." I say giggling looking back at her.

I didn't watch footing and I take a dive to the floor. "Oww." I say when I hit the floor.

"Arnold are you ok?" Helga asks dropping onto her knees next to me.

"Yeah, just wasn't watching where I was going. I guess I shouldn't have compared you to candy."

"No you shouldn't have." She says helping me up into a sitting position.

"Everything ok out here?" Gerald asks opening his room door.

"Yeah we're ok, I just took a little fall." I tell him.

"That's good. So did you get everything squared away with the other room?" He asks leaning against the door frame.

"Yep room is paid for and we have a little left over." I say standing up.

"Nice, so how much you got left?"

"Eight hundred." I say helping Helga stand up.

"Any idea what you're going to do with it?"

"We already talked it over and we're going to give Rhonda three hundred to pay her back for what we used to win it all."

"That's nice of you. What about the other five hundred? Use it to annul your drunken marriage?"

I look over to Helga and then say; "We um actually decided not to…" I brace for his reaction.

"So what, you're going to stay married?" He says his voice not changing.

"Yeah we are." I grab Helga's hand.

"Ha! Hey Phoebe." He says back into his room. "I told you I would be right."

"What! I don't believe you." She says coming out of the room. "Tell me he is joking Helga, surely you and Arnold aren't planning on staying married? You just finished collage and where will you even live?"

"We'll figure something out when we get back home. When have I ever not come up with a plan?" Helga says to her best friend.

"But." Phoebe says back.

"We'll be ok Phoebe, and if need be I'm sure my grandparents would let us stay at the boarding house till we got on our feet." I tell her.

"I'm not going to win, am I?" Phoebe says hanging her head in defeat.

"Nope." Helga says.

She sighs and then says; "Just don't do anything too rash or crazy."

"You mean like get really drunk and get married at a chapel that also cuts hair? Cause we already did that."

"Oh Helga, I am going to miss your whit when we are in California."

"I'm going to miss you too Phoebe. Oh I almost forgot, me and Arnold have a little gift for you guys."

"What really?" She asks.

"Yeah we talked, or should I say I convinced her to give you guys this." I say pulling out my wallet and pull out five of the hundred dollar bills and hold them out to Gerald and Phoebe.

"Arnold what is this?" Phoebe asks taking the money from me.

"It's what's left of our gambling winnings minus what I'm going to give to Rhonda to pay her back what we used to win it."

"Arnold, we can't take this, it's your winnings." Gerald says looking at the money in Phoebes hand in sock.

"But you're the ones moving, this is to help make it easier. You are our best friends and we just want to help you anyway we can." I say.

"Plus I would just have blown it on junk food and other useless things." Helga says laughing a little.

Phoebe rushes over and hugs us. "Thank you. You guys truly are the best friends anyone could ask for."

"So are you Phoebe." Helga says hugging her back. "Now come on, we need to get packed up."

It didn't take us long to get everything packed up in our rooms and we ride the elevator down to meet up with the others on the ground floor. Rhonda had already called the limo back we rode in to the hotel and everyone was inside it waiting on us. We apologized for making everyone wait on us and climb in ourselves. On the ride to the airport I give Rhonda the three hundred dollars and Helga and I tell everyone that we are going to stay married and give married life a shot. Most of them reacted like Phoebe did and we spend the majority of the ride telling them that we want this and will figure out all the "little details" (as Helga put them) when they come up.

"You have to remember, us Pataki's are tough and resourceful we always get by." Helga says as the car pulled up to the airport.

"But Helga, you're not a Pataki anymore. You're a Shortman." Eugene says as we get out of the limo.

"Don't worry Helga, my family is resourceful too." I reassure her after Eugene killed her boast.

"Good, I'd hate having to be the resourceful one in this marriage." She says as I close the door and we start walking into the airport.

I'm happy that our time in Las Vegas is coming to an end and we are going back to Hillwood. I'm sure that the weekend would have gone completely different had we not gone and gotten drugged and really drunk, but I'm kind of happy about the out comes from the night. Rhonda gained the courage to stand up to her dad and be honest about her feelings for Curly to us, Sheena and Eugene found their feelings for each other, and most important (for me anyway) Helga and I took a big leap forward in our life that might have taken several more years before I had realized that I need her this much in my life. I'm sure some people will think it's strange that I married the first and only real girlfriend I ever had. But sometimes people find there perfect match early in life. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I just so happened to have met mine when I was three.

"Arnold." I hear someone say but I'm lost in my own thoughts. "Arnold." I hear again with more force in there voice. "Arnold!" They yell and I snap back to reality.

"Yes? Sorry?" I say.

"Started daydreaming didn't you?" Helga asks hers being the voice I was hearing.

"Yeah I guess I was." I say as I drop my bag down on the x-ray belt.

"What was this one about?" She asks taking off her ring and her really old locket and setting them in one of the pasted trays along with the rest of the contents of her pockets and walked through the metal detector.

"Probably no surprise, but us when we were little." I say taking my ring off and putting it in a different tray as well as my wallet and phone and follow her trough.

"Like how little we talking here? Mr. Simmons class?" She asks putting her locket back on as well as her ring and picking up her bag.

"Like when we first met little." I say putting my ring on and grabbing my bag and throwing it over my shoulder.

"Wow that is a long ways back, what sparked that day dream?" She asks as we start walking down the hallway.

"I was thinking of how lucky I am that I had met my soul mate when I was three, but didn't know it then."

"Ever the romantic aren't you?"

"Ha ha, yep." I say as grabbing her hand and lacing our fingers.

"Are you two going to be this cutie all the time now?" Gerald asks from behind us.

I turn my head around to look at him and say; "There is a good chance of it."

Helga just laughs at my comment and Gerald dose too.

We had to wait a few minutes for Rhonda's plane to be ready so we were all sitting around on the chairs talking.

"You know, this whole weekend has been like something out of a movie." Harold says leaning back in his chair.

"Yeah this whole experience would make an interesting movie." Sid says agreeing with him.

"Humm…" I say leaning back thinking; 'It would be an interesting story for one'. I lean forward and start digging through my bag.

"What are you looking for?" Helga asks next to me.

"My note book, I want to write down what happened." I say pulling out my black hardcover notebook and a pen. It's a habit one of my film teachers taught me, "always keep a notebook with you, you never know when you'll get inspiration" he would say. And it stuck, I started writing down everything that happened.

I keep writing and only stop to board the plane and take a seat next to Helga. I guess the plane has electric outlets because Helga had her camera out and the power cable plugged into it. I kept writing for the majority of the flight and Helga switched between reading from a book and writing in her book of poems. I finally finish writing down everything that happened right as the captain tells us that we are coming in for our decent into Hillwood.

"That sure was quick." I say putting my notebook away.

"That's because you were so focused on writing the whole time." Nadine says from the other side of the plane.

"Yeah you were really focused Arnold. I tried talking to you a few times, but I don't think you even heard me." Helga says as she wrapped up her cameras power cable.

"Really? I'm sorry." I say to her.

"It's ok, I get like that too some times when I write." She says zipping up her bag.

The plane lands and after waiting for the plane to dock at the terminal we are finally able to get off the plane.

"Finally we're home!" Harold says as we walk out of the gate."

"Guys…" Helga says looking at the back of her camera.

"What's up?" I ask her.

"My camera has pictures on it, and I remember whipping the memory before I left."

"Could they be from the other night?" I ask her.

"Might be, but do we want to look at them? I can easily delete them and we will never know what we did."

"I kind of want to see them." Sid says.

"Yeah, me too." Harold says agreeing with him.

"I'm curious too Helga." I tell her. I want to find out more on what we did the other night.

"Ok, let's take a look, but if any are too embarrassing we delete them and never speak of them again, Deal?" Rhonda says.

"Deal." Helga says. We all gather around her and she hits one of the buttons on the camera.

"No freaking way!" Helga says as we look at the first picture. It's us back stage at the RATS show, Eugene and Sheena are talking to members of the cast. Harold Sid and Stinky are playing with the flying riggings and the rest of us are out of view.

She pushes a different button and the picture changes to one of all of us doing shots at a bar nothing amazing in this one.

Next is us seeing greeting Brainy. This must have been when we met up with him.

After that one we are drinking and talking to him while walking around the casino.

The next one is of Helga, Me, Sid and the Jang guy at the craps table. Sid and Jang had their arms around each other and drinking from there glasses as Helga blows on what I assume are dice in my hands.

The one after that is of Helga and I jumping into the air hugging as Sid and Jang toasting there glasses together. This must have been taken when we won the money.

After that one it's everyone running out of the Casino and Sid holding Jang's briefcase.

There was another one of us drinking, this time it was outside of a liquor store and we are drinking from cans of beer.

Next was at the tattoo parlor with Harold getting his tattoo. He's giving the camera thumbs up with his free hand and Sid is sitting in a corner holding the briefcase to his chest.

The next picture is of us outside the parlor and Rhonda pointing across the street to The For Ever Love Chapel and Salon.

In the next one we are in the Salon/Chapel, Rhonda is sitting in one of the salon chairs with a look of boasting on her face as the hair dressers is dying her hair.

The one after that is of me on one knee most likely proposing to Helga being cheered on by everyone else. I knew I had already asked her.

The next one must have been taken right after the ceremony because I'm holding Helga in my arms and she has the veil still on. We are both smiling and our foreheads are resting against each other's.

It must have been a while in-between pictures cause the next one was us at the Strange Creatures Museum. Sid was standing in front of a crocodile that has been covered with short hair and fake bunny ears. He still has the briefcase and it looks like Stinky and Harold are egging him on to do something.

The following picture was of us in the parking lot of the Museum and Helga along with the rest of the girls are laughing at Sid and Harold.

Next was us leaving the train station, it must have gotten really late by this time cause everyone in the picture was looking a little drained.

After that was us coming out of a fast food burger place and Sheena has a big white bag in her hands.

The picture after that is of us up on the roof of the hotel. We all had our arms around each other and had the sunrise behind us. It was a really great picture of all of us and I hope Helga will let us print this one out.

The final picture is of Eugene Picking up the camera and looking off to his right with a look of concern. I'm guessing that this was as we left him on the roof.

"Holy shit man." Gerald says after we looked at the last picture.

"Holy shit indeed." I say.

**AN: **

Well here it is the end of this tail, but it's not the end of the story. I personally hate stories that end with unanswered question, so I am working on an epilogue for this. But it's turning into a full chapter + so I might have to break it up when I finish it. Either way I will have it up ASAP.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Epilogue.**

It's hard to believe it's been five years since Vegas, quite a lot has happened over the years. Me and Helga are still married happier than ever and are living in the boarding house. Gerald and Phoebe got married two years after they moved out to California. They had a wedding on the beach and Phoebe looked amazing in the dress Rhonda had made for her. Rhonda and Curly are still together and living happily in New York. Curly is still chugging along on his path to become a lawyer and Rhonda has started her own little line of pink teamed clothing. To Harold's surprise Patty wasn't that mad at him and he got the tattoo removed shortly after we got back and is now running Greens Meats as Mr. Green enjoys his retirement. We don't see much of Nadine anymore with all the world traveling she dose, but she still writes us all the time. It should be no surprise, but Sheena and Curly are engaged themselves and are acting as part of the RATS cast. They must have made a good impression on them when we met them in Vegas. Sid and Stinky are still working construction but are taking night cases at the local community college.

Helga's parents as well as my grandparents were mad at us when we got back and confronted them about what we did and our plans to stay together, they and almost everyone else from the neighborhood all said the same thing: we were too young. But in a rare moment of sanity from Grandma, she was able to convinced Grandpa to let us give it a try. She'd reminded him of how young they were when they got married

It took a lot more work for Helga's parents to accept us being married. Helga moved in with me less than a week after we got back in town because her parents wouldn't stop putting pressure on her to end the marriage. Grandpa and Grandma were kind enough to let us move into one of the empty boarding apartments. The apartment was the one that Mr. Smith had rented for years up until he moved out when I was sixteen. He took out all his strange gadgets and the apartment had been empty ever sense he left. The apartment was not the biggest in the building but it has its own bathroom and a kitchenette. The walls were covered in pale blue wallpaper and the floor is hardwood flooring. It also took some work to convince Grandpa and Grandma to let us pay the rent for the apartment. We were finally able to convince them to let us if we had a vow ceremony where we exchanged wedding vows. To our surprise Helga's parents came but they didn't hang around for food and drinks like everyone else that was at the church we had the ceremony in.

Helga didn't show it but she was clearly upset that her parents didn't seem to care about her life or how it was changing. I did my best to assured her that they would come around eventually.

"I hope your right Arnold, as much as they didn't care when I was growing up, they are still my parents and I don't want them to fully abandon me."

At first living together with Helga was a bit odd, we'd never even spent more than just a night together before Vegas so at first we were unsure on a lot of things. Like how to share a bathroom or doing our laundry together (which was a bit awkward at first).

We had to trade up from my old twin bed to one big enough for the both of us and furnishing our apartment required hitting up several of the secondhand stores in Hillwood. It took some hunting but we were able to find a couple of rugs as well as a table and chairs to go into the kitchenette, a sofa and coffee table. A few end tables to use in the bed room and a couple of book shelves to house our combined and always growing book collection. I was happy that I was able to salvage my sound system and the TV I had bought for a twentieth birthday gift to myself. Nothing we bought from the thrift stores matched and Gerald had dubbed our apartment the "Mismatched Love Nest." But Helga and I love it none the less.

I was able to land a job at the local TV station on their editing team, it wasn't a high ranked job but I was able to put my film school knowledge to use and still work on my movie ideas.

Helga started writing for the Newspaper, at first she was just getting small little fluff articles printed. But after a lot of hard work over a few years and a well written story about a little book shop that's been open for years (that was a personal favorite of hers) was in danger of shutting down, she now has a weekly column that gives writing advice and tips for beginner writers and the occasional book review. She's also started up a blog where she writes about poetry and of her eventual second and then third book of poems to be published. Of which I have a signed copy of both and that have been well read just like her first book.

After several months of us living together Olga had called and said she was going to be in town and wanted to visit us. Never had I seen Helga in a cleaning spree like she was the days following up to Olga's visit. We weren't very messy, but we were a buzzy couple and never really devoted a lot of time to keep the apartment super cleaned.

But on the day when Olga did come knocking we were both glad that Helga had deep cleaned the apartment, Olga had managed to somehow drag their parents along with her.

Helga was in complete shock when she saw her parents with her sister. "Miriam, Big Bob I, err I mean we were not expecting you as well." Helga says when she opened the door.

"I wanted to keep them coming along a surprise for you baby sis." Olga says giving Helga a back braking hug.

"I wish you had given us some kind of warning." I say getting an equally strong hug from Olga as Helga did. "We had only prepared for just you Olga."

"We can always leave." Bob says sounding like he really didn't want to be there. But I knew that Helga would really want them to be there.

"Nonsense Bob we're happy to have you, we'll just have to make the spaghetti stretch a little and I'll have to ask Grandpa if we can barrow a couple of chairs." I say holding out my right hand to Bob.

He seemed a little hesitant at first but eventually took my hand and squeezed it. "Good to see you Arnine." He says letting go of my hand and walks in. 'Jesus his grip is like a crocodile bite.' I think rubbing my hand.

"Oh silly daddy, his name is not Arnine, its Arnold. You should really know your own son-in-laws name." Olga says to her father as she looks around the apartment.

"Oh, sorry kid." He says when Olga corrected him on my name. "Nice little place you kids got hear."

"Thanks." I say trying to sound censer. "Helga I'm going to go ask Grandpa for a couple of chairs, I'll be back soon." I say then give her a little kiss on the cheek.

She blushed a little and says; "Ok." Then under her breath just load enough for me to hear; "Come back quickly."

"I will." I say just a quiet as her. Once out of the apartment I almost run down the hall to Grandma and Grandpas room.

I skid to a stop at their room door and knock.

Grandpa answers the door; "Oh hey there Shortman, what can I do for ya?" After all these years very little about Grandpa has changed, He walks with a cane now and isn't doing as much physical work around the building.

"Can we barrow a couple of chairs? Olga brought their parents with her and we don't have enough for everyone to sit on."

"Sure think Arnold, come in and grab a few." He says standing aside and letting me in.

"Thanks Grandpa." I say walking into the room.

I grab a pair of their chairs, give grandma a kiss on the forehead as she watches TV and thank Grandpa once more and head back to our apartment. When I turn the corner I see Helga leaning against our room door.

"Is everything ok?" I ask her as I walk over to her.

"I just had to get out of there, it was far too quiet and creepy. My parents are just sitting on the couch not saying anything while Olga try's and talks to them." She says standing up off the door.

"Well I'm here and I can try to keep a conversation going." I say as she turns around and reaches for the door knob.

"Here we go." She opens the door and we walk back into our apartment.

Back inside it was eerily quiet, Bob and Miriam are sitting on the couch and Olga is sitting across from them on one of the kitchen chairs. "I got the extra chairs, so let's eat." I say trying to break the silence of the room.

I had already pulled our round table out of the corner we keep it in to make more room for us to sit around it. I moved the chairs around it and Helga pulls out two more sets of plates and silverware. She places them on the table and I carry over the pot of spaghetti and set it on the table.

"Dinner is server." Helga says taking the lid off of the pot.

"Oh Helga it smells excellent." Olga says sitting down at the table.

"Thanks Olga." She says sitting down herself. Bob and Miriam sit down next to Olga and I take the set next to Helga.

"Oh, sorry." I say getting back up. 'What would you like to drink?"

"What do you have Arnold?" Olga asks as I walk back into the kitchenette.

"We have…" I say as I open the fridge. "Water, milk and Tang."

"What is Tang?" Bob asks.

"It's this orange flavored drink that was originally made for astronauts on space travel missions." I say holding up the pitcher full of the drink.

"Ooo that sounds exciting! I would love to try it!" Olga says holding out her glass.

I fill up her glass as well as mine and Helga's. "I'm sure you will like it, we drink it all the time."

"You got any beer?" Bob asks.

"No, sorry." I tell him. I didn't think he wanted to hear that after Vegas Helga and I have cut way back on drinking and don't keep any alcohol in the apartment.

Bob grunts then says; "I'll have some water then."

"Me too." Miriam adds, the first time I've heard her say anything today. I fill their glasses from the Crita pitcher in the fridge. I sit down and Helga starts serving the spaghetti onto everyone's plates.

I hold my breath as our guests take their first bite of the spaghetti. Olga was the first to say something. "Oh wow, this is really good. Helga did you make this?"

"No cooking is more of Arnold's thing." Helga says.

"It's one of my Grandmothers recipes, but I had to make changes to the ingredient size because it was originally meant to feed ten people." I tell them. I was nervous about cooking for today, because it's one thing to throw together something for me and Helga to eat while we are working it's an entire different thing to prepare something to try and impress Olga let alone their parents.

"It's not half bad, good job Archie." 'That's two times' I think as he gets my name wrong, but I wasn't going to call him out on it. He's never gotten my name right and at least he not calling me "Orphan Boy".

"So um Helga…" Miriam says. "What's with all these… Newspaper clippings?" She points to the wall behind the couch where we have newspaper articles pined up.

"That's my doing." I answer her. "Those are some of the articles she's written that I thought were really great and I wanted to show them off."

"Oh you write for the paper? Well that's cool." Miriam says.

"I really like it, I don't get to write a lot of big articles but I'm getting to write and get paid to do so while still having the free time to work on my poetry." Helga says he face lighting up like it always does when she talks about her work. "Oh I just remember!" She says getting up. "I'll be right back" and she heads into the bed room.

"So Arnold, what are you doing for employment?" Olga asks me.

"I'm working at the TV station on their editing team. I'm mostly the errand boy but I get to work on some projects which is a lot of fun and it gives me time to work on other projects too."

"TV huh?" Bob says as he's shoveling food into his mouth.

"Found it." Helga says coming back out of the bedroom holding a wrapped package. I knew what it was immediately and smiled at her.

"Here you go Olga." Helga says giving the package to her sister as she sits back down.

"What's this?" Olga asks looking at the package.

"It's a gift, I got it a while ago but I didn't want to just mail it to you."

Olga rips opens the warping to reveal a copy of Helga's book of poems. "Oh Helga thank you!" She says hugging her sister.

"You did ask for one almost a year ago." Helga says as Olga opens it up.

"For my big sister, it wasn't perfect but I wouldn't trade our childhood for any other one. Love Helga G Shortman" Olga says reading out loud the message Helga had wrote inside the book to her sister. "Oh Helga that is so sweet." Olga hugs Helga again.

"I'm sure you'll like it Olga, I've read mine several times and I still enjoy them." I tell Olga.

"So that's your book uh?" Bob says almost done with his food.

"Yeah, it took a lot of work and I could get you a copy if you'd like." Helga says.

"Oh Helga these are fantastic!" Olga says as she reads random pomes in the book. "Every one of these are just so beautiful."

"Thanks Olga." Helga thanks her sister. "So would you like a copy, Dad?" I was a little taken back when Helga called Bob dad, she's always called him Bob or Big Bob as far as I knew.

"Yeah sure." He says finishing his food.

We just sit there in silence as the rest of us finish our food and the silence is broken by Olga when she finishes her food. "So do you guys have any wedding photos?"

Me and Helga look at each other than to Olga; "We have some from the vow ceremony and a few from Vegas." Helga says to her sister. We had kept most of the pictures from Vegas and had framed the one off of Helga's camera that was of us getting married and the one Mrs. Foreverlove had given us.

"I'd love to see them if I could." Olga asked as I started to clear the table.

"I don't see why not." Helga says as she helps me clear the plates. "Arnold do you know where the photo album is?" She asked me placing the glasses and silverware in the sink.

"Yeah it's in the bedroom, want me to go get it?"

"Yes please."

"M'kay." I say and walk into the bedroom. Our bedroom wasn't even half the size of the main room. It was just big enough to have our bed, a dresser and a nightstand on both sides of the bed, but it had a small walk in closet so we had plenty of room for our cloths. On the wall over the dresser we have a couple of pictures hanging up: the group picture from graduation night, the picture we took on top of the hotel in Vegas, the one that was taken of us at the chapel on Helga's camera and the one Mrs. Foreverlove took when we got married. Mrs. Foreverlove's picture was a little beaten up from its day spent in Helga's purse but it was still my favorite picture of us. I take the two wedding photos down off the wall and move Helga's laptop from on top of the photo album on the dresser to the nightstand on her side of the bed. The photo album was a "Wedding gift" from Gerald and Phoebe before they left for California and only has the pictures from our vow ceremony in it for now. I grab it and the framed pictures and leave our bedroom.

Back in the main room Olga is sitting between her parents on the couch and Helga was sitting backwards on one of the chairs. "It was a lot more work having to verify that they were my original works than it was just finding a publisher that was willing to publish a young writer." Helga was talking about her book to Olga.

"Did they think you were stealing other peoples work?" Olga asked her sister.

"Not really, my publisher just had to do it as a formality."

"I've met her a couple of times, she's a really nice lady." I say handing the pictures to Helga and grabbing a chair for me to sit on.

Helga hands Olga the framed pictures. "These ones were taken at the chapel when we got married, this one got a little beaten up from being kept in my purse all day and the other was taken with my digital camera." Helga says as Olga looks at the picture.

"Aww you look so cutie, both of you." Olga says looking at the picture Mrs. Foreverlove had taken.

I blush a little. "Thanks, it's my favorite picture of us."

"Don't you think they look cutie mom?" Olga asks Miriam holding the frame to her.

"Humm? Oh! Yes." She says snapping back to reality.

Olga sets the picture on the coffee table and Helga hands her the album. "These are from the ceremony we had to exchange vows. It was Grandma and Grandpa's idea."

"Who?" Olga asks confused by what Helga said.

"My grandparents." I answer her question. "They told Helga that since she was family now that she should call them Grandpa and Grandma. The vow ceremony was the only way they would let us rent the apartment, and they really enjoyed the whole thing."

Olga opens the album and starts looking through the pictures. "Wow, these are very nice. Isn't that the dress you wore to graduation?"

"Yeah, it was the fanciest thing I own and I didn't see the need to buy a dress to ware only once."

She thumbs through the album looking at every picture and showing some to Bob or Miriam making comments on how happy or cutie we were in them.

When she was getting to the end of the pictures in the album Bob looks at his watch. "Olga, it's getting late, we should be getting home." I sneak a look at my watch and see that it's barely past six in the evening.

"Ok Daddy." Olga says getting up followed by her parents. "Helga and Arnold it was nice to see you again. You have a very lovely home." She walks around and gives Helga a hug then me.

"Thanks Olga, it's not much but it's ours and we love it." I tell her after her hug.

"Good bye Olga." Helga says as we all walk to the door and I pull it open.

"Bye Bye little sis, and you too Arnold." Olga says stepping out the door.

"Bye Dad, bye Mom." Helga says not using their first names.

"See ya around kid." Bob says.

"Good bye Helga dear, you both seem to be doing very well for yourselves. Keep up the good work." Miriam says the longest statement she's said all day.

"It was good to see you Mr. Pataki." I say holding out my hand to Bob.

"Take care Arcabold." He says shaking my hand. 'That's strike three there Big Bob, thanks for playing the name your son-in-law game.' I think as he gets my name wrong again.

"You too." I tell him as he lets go of my hand.

He follows Miriam out the door and I shut it. "Well that could have gone worst." I say leaning against the door.

Helga dropped onto the cough. "It could have, but it didn't, and in all honestly, I thing it went quite well."

"Really? They still seemed disapproving of us."

"To the untrained ear, but Mom is happy for us and Dad is willing to let us be."

"You got all that from what little they said?"

"Pataki's speak in code, "Keep up the good work" is Miriam for "I am proud of you and want the best for you" and "See ya around" is Big Bob for "You're doing good for yourself." Bob is stubborn and will take more time to see that we can make it." Helga says as I sit down next to her.

"Wow, and I thought it was hard to understand Grandma sometimes."

"Oh she is Arnold, she is." She says then gets up. "We might as well start cleaning up."

"You want to take the chairs back to Grandpa and I'll start on the dishes?" I ask standing up.

"Sure, I'll be back soon." She grabs the chairs and heads out the door while I start on the dishes.

Helga was back within a few minutes and she helps me by drying the dishes I wash.

"Love you Football-Head." She says bumping my head with hers.

"Love you too Helga." I say kissing her on the cheek.

"We're doing pretty good aren't we? On our own an all." She asks as I hand her the last dish.

I look around our apartment and then back to her. "Yeah we are. We're pretty lucky, most young couples probably don't have our luck."

"That's because they're not The Dream Team." She says putting the dish away.

I just laugh at her statement.

Later that night we are lying in bed, Helga is leaning against my right side typing away on her laptop and I have my arm around her as I'm reading a book.

"Hey Helga." I say looking up from my book to her

"Yeah?" she says looking up from her work.

"Think your dad will ever get my name right?" I ask her.

"Well it took him almost seventeen years to stop calling me Olga, so you may have to wait a while." She says smiling.

"Well that stinks." I say closing my book.

"Names don't seem to be a big think for Bob, it didn't even seem to faze him that I called him dad." She says as she closes her laptop, yawns then leans over to set it down on her nightstand and lies down.

"It surprised me at the very least." I put my book down, turn off the light and lie down next to her and wrap my arms around her.

"Look at us, we really are grownups now aren't we?" She says snuggling up to me.

"Yep, we did the impossible and became productive members of society." I say knowing that she's talking about us going to be at a decent hour.

She turns around and kisses me; "and it's all your fault."

I give her a little laugh; "Good night Helga, love you."

"I love you too and good night my love." She says rolling back over and gets as close as she can to me.

It didn't take as long as Helga had joked about for her dad to get my name right. Almost two months after we had dinner with Helga's parents and Olga I was at work when the phone rings.

Being the "New Kid" it's usually on me to answer the phone. "Hillwood Station, Editing Department." I say.

"Arnold its Grandpa. Listen Helga just got a call from the hospital, Bob was in a car accident and I'm not sure on the details. But she asked me to call you and let you know while she calls her mother and tells her."

"Oh my god, which hospital?" I ask him as I start to worry for my father-in-law.

"She said it was Hillwood General. I'm going to take her over there now, are you going to head over there too?" He asks.

"Yes I'm going to leave work early. I'll talk to you when I get there. Bye Grandpa."

"Bye Shortman." He says. I hang up the phone and rush over to the station manager's office.

I knock on the door; "Come in." I open the door and step into my boss's office.

"Hey boss I just got a call from my Grandfather that my Father-in-law was in a car crash. My wife is already on her way there and I was hoping you'd let me cut out early so I can go see him myself." I say fast.

"You're married?" He asks dumfounded. 'Would it kill him to get to know me?' I think.

Wirth a small eye twitch I say; "Yeah, for almost a year now. So Can I go?" I ask getting impatient.

"Yeah. Go see if your pops ok." He say looking back down at his paper work.

"Thanks." I say as I leave his office.

Once I close his door I run down the hallway and back into the editing room. I stuff my laptop into my messenger bag, tell my coworkers that I'm taking off and run down the hall and out of the building. I jump into my car, put my bag in the back set and fire up the engine.

It feels like it took longer to get to the hospital than it actually did. The whole drive I was getting more and more antsy.

"Come on, come on" I'd say every time I hit a light.

When I finally get to the hospital I find Grandpas old Packard and park next to him. I run inside and go straight to the front desk. "Hi I need to find out what room my Father-in-law is in." I say to nurse behind the desk.

But before she could say anything I hear a voice I really wanted to hear; "Arnold."

I look over to where the sound of the voice came from just as Helga runs into me and hugs me. "He's ok Arnold, he's ok." She says as I hug her back.

"I'm so relieved to hear that." I say holding her close to me as I feel some of the weight lift off my chest.

"What happened to him?" I ask as we break the hug but still hold each other. Her eyes are red from crying.

"He got T-boned in the passenger side at intersection on his way back to work from lunch. He has a fracture in his leg and his back was thrown out."

"Can we go see him?" I ask.

"Yeah, he's on some heavy pain killers so he's a little out of it."

She leads me down the hallway to one of the rooms and opens the door. Inside the room Grandpa is sitting in a chair next to the bed Bob is laying on talking to him.

"Hi Grandpa." I say to him as we enter the room.

"Hey there Shortman. I was just talking to Bob here seems like you really did married into a tough family." He says getting up from the chair. "Now that you're here, I think I'll be getting back to your grandma." He turns back around to Bob and says; "It's good to see that you're ok Bob."

"Huh?... Oh you too…" Bob says sounding very out of it.

"See you back at home Arnold."

I grab the spare char from the corner and bring it over to the one Grandpa was sitting in as Helga sits down in it.

"Hi dad, Arnold came to see you." Helga says as I sit down.

"Oh hey there Arnold." He says looking over to me. 'Wow, he got my name right.' I think surprised that he got my name right.

"Hi Mr. Pataki. I'm glad to see that you're ok."

"You're a good kid Arnold." He says sounding more spaced out.

"Thank you Mr. Pataki." I tell him.

"No I mean it, you really are a good kid. You're always polite to everyone you meet, even to those that are rude to you. My little girl is really lucky to have you and I'm happy she met you Arnold. You've taken really good care of her, and Helga. I never say it, but I'm really proud of you and all you have done. You two are doing really well for your selves and Miriam and I are both happy for the both of you." He reaches over and pats Helga's hand that was resting on the bed after he finished his heart filled monologue. "I love you Helga."

Helga grabs ahold of his hand. "I love you too dad." She says giving his hand a squeeze.

There was a knock on the door and then it opens as a nurse walks in. "Sorry to have to do this, but I'm going to have to ask you to wrap it up. We need Mr. Pataki to get some rest before the doctors come in to take a look at his back."

"Ok." Helga says to the nurse. Looking back to her dad she says; "Dad we have to leave now, I'll call mom again and let her know you're ok."

With a yawn he says; "Thank you Helga." He then closes his eyes as we get up and walk past the nurse.

Once in the hall way I turn to Helga; "Are you ok?"

She falls into my chest and I grab her to keep us from falling over. "I've never seen him like that before. He looked so week in that bed, and the way he was talking from his heart it was like he was on his death bed."

"He's not going to die Helga. Remember Pataki's are a tough group of people." I say reassuring her and hugging her to my chest. "You'll see, once he's all healed up he'll be the same old Big Bob." I pull her away from my chest enough so I could look into her eyes. "Now come on, I know what you need after all this."

"What's that?" She asks looking up to me.

"You need your favorite Chocolate Chunky ice cream and a Trash Can pizza from Tony's." I say with a smile naming off her two favorite foods.

"That dose sound good, Thank you Arnold. You always know how to cheer me up" She says kissing me on the cheek.

"You're welcome, now be a bad influence on me and help me make playing hooky from the rest of the day at work worthwhile." I say as we start walking down the hall to the door.

With a little giggle she says; "You're on Mr. Shortman."

We wondered if Bob would remember what he said to us in his drugged up state when he got out of the hospital. But he did and Miriam and him started to show more interest in our lives. They'd call us at random times to see who we are doing, or wanting to have lunch some times. I think Bob had a little scare when he got into the accident and he realized that he needed to improve the relationship he has with Helga before it became too late in life, which Helga and I were happy for.

Six months after Bob's accident we got an expected surprise in the mail. I got home after work and found the mail hasn't been brought into the boarding house yet. "Well this is a rare site." I say taking the mail out of the box and opening the front door. I walk into the downstairs kitchen as I flip through the mail pulling out stuff for Helga and me and set the rest in the mail basket on the counter. I hear a faint oink and look down to see Abner getting up from his basket in the corner. He's not the young pig he once was anymore and as much as I'd love to have him stay in our apartment, he's just too old for the stairs. So I keep him on the ground floor and keep him as happy as I can. "Hey there boy." I say kneeling down to him as he walked over to me. "How's my good boy? You have a good nap?" I scratch his head and he leans his head into my hand.

I stand up and look down at him and say; "You want a treat boy?"

Whit that I see the spark of youth appear in his eyes and he starts oinking in excitement. "I take that as a yes." I say as I walk over to the fridge and open the door. I pull out a soy bean pig treat I had made for him.

"Ok. Sit." I say as he sits on his hind legs. "Lay down." He lays down never taking his eyes off the treat in my hand. I kneel back down. "Now come here boy." I say holding out the treat. He runs over to me and takes the treat from my hand and eats it quickly. He starts licking my face after he finished eating and I just start laughing.

"A boy and his pig. It's a beautiful site." I look over to see Helga leaning against the door frame.

"Hi Helga, just get home?" I ask her.

"Yeah I still need to get some more work done on this article I'm writing, luckily I can work from home when the idiots at the office get to me." She says looking off into the distance and scowling.

"What happened now?" I ask getting up from next to Abner.

"Those jerks thought they were being funny. Making a few rude remarks about my article about Book Nook being in danger of closing. I love that place and I want more people to know about them."

"What did they say?" I ask walking over to her.

"They were saying things like how book stores are out dated and it's a waste of space in the paper to write about it."

"That horrible, I'm sorry Helga."

"Not as sorry as they will be when they find the default langue of their computers has been changed to Hungarian." She says giving me and evil smirk.

"I should tell you that what you did was wrong and you shouldn't have done that. But then that would be telling you to not be yourself. I just hope it's a somewhat easy fix."

"If they can read Hungarian it will be." She says picking up our mail from the counter and starts flipping through the letters. "Hey look, we got a letter from Nadine and one from Gerald and Phoebe." She holds up two of the letters.

"I wonder What Nadine is up to." I say as she opens the letter and I open the one from Gerald and Phoebe

"She's down in Florida in the everglades doing research on larva patterns and she says she'll be back in town in around six mounts."

"Well that's really good timing. Cause we have a wedding to attend around that time."

"What do you mean?" She asks.

"We just got the invitation to Gerald and Phoebe's wedding." I say holding up the formal looking card.

"Really? I have to go and call her." She says taking the card and rushing up to our apartment.

I just laugh as I pick up the rest of our mail, say bye to Abner and follow her up stairs. "She is cutie when she acts like a normal girl."

Helga got the details of the wedding from Phoebe over the phone and we made plans to drive down to California a week before their wedding so Helga could get fitted for her dress. All of our friends had also made the trip to California for the wedding. Rhonda and Curly had already been there for a few days before we arrived because Rhonda had promised to design her dress for her. Rhonda had spent day's hand crafting her dress, it was a lot like a traditional sleeveless Japanese formal dress with some "Rhonda Lloyd personal flair". The flair being pink flowers and ribbons adorning the otherwise white dress.

When asked about the pink flowers and ribbons Rhonda just said; "The color pink has grown on me, I've been using it in everything I've designed." I guess getting her hair dyed pink had a positive effect on her.

They had the wedding on the beach as the sun was setting. Helga was the maid of honor and I was the best man. Phoebe looked amazing in her dress, but I couldn't keep my eyes off of Helga in hers. It was a simple light pink dress like the other brides maids (Rhonda, Sheena and Nadine) wore, but she looked beautiful none the less.

We gave Gerald and Phoebe their wedding gift at the reception after, it was photo album just like the one they gave us as well as the card to the wedding photographer we got to take the photos of the wedding.

During the reception Rhonda told us how she stood up to her dad about her and Curly being together. How she and him faced her dad holding hands and they told him they wanted to be together and he could either accept it, or lose his only daughter. He didn't believe his daughter at first but when she started throwing the credit cards and her cell phone out of her purse saying she didn't need him and they will make it on their own, he finally let her do as she wanted. They are still living in the apartment her dad had gotten her in New York and are happy together.

Helga tells them of how she's got a second book in the works but having a weekly article she has to write is delaying it. Everyone was excited for her and all couldn't wait to read it.

"Look at you Helga, almost twenty five, a full time writer for the paper and a second book on the way." Gerald says to her after she finished her tail.

"What can I say, I am awesome."

For my twenty fifth birthday I was given a very unexpected gift from Grandma and Grandpa. Them Helga and I were in the living room down stairs and they were singing happy birthday to me while I sat on the couch with a cake in front of me on the coffee table.

They finish singing and Helga kisses me on the cheek; "Happy Birthday Arnold."

"Happy name day Kimba." Grandma says kissing my other cheek.

"Thank you Helga, thank you Grandma." I say tuning a little red from the kisses.

"Here you go Shortman. This is from your grandma and me." Grandpa says giving me a very thin wrapped gift.

"Thanks Grandpa, what is it?" I ask looking at it.

"You have to open it to find out dear." Grandma says sitting down next to me.

I rip open the wrapping paper to find a manila envelope. Confused I look at my grandparents who are just smiling at me. I start to open it as Helga sits down next to me. Inside the envelope is several pieces of paper coved in small print.

"Ok, now I'm really confused. What is all of this?" I ask looking at Grandpa who is standing behind Grandma with his hands on her shoulders.

"As you know Shortman your grandma and me aren't as young as we once were, and it's starting to get a little bit hard to keep up with everything around here. So we talked it over and decided to make you the official hair to the Boarding House for when we are ready to pass it along and are going to look into getting someone to manage things around here for us." He says looking at me and Helga.

"But Grandpa, I could easily take care of the work that needs to be done around here for you." I say looking up at him.

"We want you to keep going with your film work, we don't want you to give up on it." He says placing a hand on my shoulder.

"But all I'm doing is working as an editor, I'm not even one of the top ones either." I say looking down from him.

"You keep at your work Kimba, I have faith that you will do something great with your talent." Grandma says putting her hand on top of Grandpas.

"I'm with t hem Arnold." Helga says from the other side of me. "I don't want you giving up on your dreams."

"Ok you guys have made your point. I won't try and stop you from hire someone to manage the boarding house."

"I knew you'd see it our way. Now come on, let's dig into the cake." Grandpa says.

True to my work I did not stop Grandma and Grandpa from finding someone to take care of the building. It did take them a while but in the end they found a middle aged man by the name of Mr. Feeny. He's a really nice guy, always willing to lessen to people's problems and offer sagely advice to those that need it and he'd always seems to have a warm smile on his face. He took my old room for his own and I have to admit it was a little odd helping him move in and talking the last of my stuff out of the room. It was like I was officially saying good bye to my childhood and moving fully into the adult life.

I also started working on my movie ideas more after Helga encouraged me to spend more time working on them.

"Your have a lot of great ideas Arnold." She said one night as we cuddle in bed. "If you work at them more you could get one made."

"That's a lot like what I told you when you were unsure about your book." I tell her as I hold her in my arms.

"That's where I got it from." She says rolling over to face me. "Now come here and kiss me." She says pulling me to her and kisses me.

Over the next two years we both worked really hard, her on a third book of poetry and me on one of my movie ideas. Helga's poetry has become quite popular and she's even been stopped on the street a few times by people that recognized her.

I on the other hand had to almost beg the station manager let me take a week off to go down to California to a meeting with a production company to pitch the movie I've been working on for almost five years. We were also going to use this time to visit Gerald and Phoebe while we were in California.

On the drive down I kept going over my work in the car, making little changes and rereading it.

"Arnold, stop worrying about it. They are going to love your movie pitch, I love it and I was there for it." Helga says looking over to me in the passenger seat.

"I know I know, it's just I can't help but think it could be better." I say looking up from my laptop to her.

"Sometimes imperfections are needed for something to be perfect." She says looking out the window.

"Wow, that's deep." I say a little shocked at what she just said.

"I am a professional poet remember? It's my job to be deep." She says smiling at me.

When we arrive at Gerald and Phoebe's place we have just enough time for a quick catch up and for me to plug in my printer and print off my script before we have to leave for the meeting at the production company's office.

Even though we arrived right before the meeting was supposed to take place we still had to wait in the waiting room for almost a half hour. As I watched the clock slowly tick away I start getting really antsy and it took Helga taking my hand in hers and squeezing it for me to start to calm down.

"You're going to do just fine, think of all the really scary things you've faced down in the past. FTi and that Jang guy."

"Confronting you about how you felt about me." I add to her list.

"Oh come on, that couldn't have been as scary as FTi." She says smirking at me.

"Oh yes it was, you intimidated me a lot back then cause I was unsure if you felt the same way I did."

"Well if Rhonda had never pushed us to play truth or dare we might never had confessed to each other on her roof."

"Huh, because of Rhonda we have taken two big leaps forward in our life together. What are the odds?" I say leaning back in the chair.

"Far too high for me to even think about, but I'm glad the odds seem to forever be in our favor."

"Mr. Shortman. They are ready for you." The secretary says from her desk at the other end of the room.

"Wish me luck." I say standing up.

Helga gets up too and straitening my tie and kisses me on the cheek and says; "I'm sure you won't need it, but good luck Arnold and I love you and always will no matter what."

"I love you too Helga, no matter what too." I say kissing her on the cheek.

With a deep breath I walk into the office. Inside there are three men sitting behind a long table all in matching dark blue suites. I shake each of their hands before sitting down.

The one in the middle starts the conversation off; "Ok Mr. Shortman, let's hear your pitch."

"Ok, it's about a group of four friends that got to Vegas for a bachelor party and the crazy events that follow after a night they can't remember. I call this movie "The Hangover".

**AN:** And there you have it, the real ending to the first story I've ever written with intent to put it online. Sorry its almost twice as long as the other chapters. I want to thank everyone that took the time to read this, it was a labor of love and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. And if you caught the few reference jokes in this, good job. I got the inspiration for this from watching the third Hangover movie and after re watching the original I set out to write this. I didn't have any major story ideas set in stone when I started writing this other than Helga and Arnold getting married and staying together in the end and Gerald proposing to Phoebe. The rest I just made it up as I worked on it. I hope that you found this an enjoyable story and I look forward to hearing what people have to say about it.


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